


A Practical Guide to Putting Your Life Back Together After Sleeping Through the Apocalypse

by Silvex



Series: Easily My Most Self-Indulgent AU Yet [1]
Category: Persona 3
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, I will give these kids a happy ending even if it kills me, Temporary Amnesia, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 28,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26879089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvex/pseuds/Silvex
Summary: Shinjiro wakes up from a four-month-long coma with memories that stop being entirely coherent at the tail-end of middle school. This is, obviously, not an ideal situation to be in, but he doesn't exactly have a lot of options for fixing it.The one possibility he does see involves a cheerful girl with a bright smile, and honestly, that just brings up even more questions.Thankfully, she seems more than willing to answer them.
Relationships: Aragaki Shinjiro & Sanada Akihiko, Aragaki Shinjiro/Female Persona 3 Protagonist
Series: Easily My Most Self-Indulgent AU Yet [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961047
Comments: 28
Kudos: 103





	1. Prologue: In Which Shinji's Situation Is Sort of Terrible

Dreams were funny things. No matter how nonsensical they were, they always seemed to make sense at the time, constructing scenarios that would never, could never be entertained in real life.

Dreams were mysterious, dreams were difficult to understand later. Dreams could be good or bad.

Dreams, Shinjiro had long decided, were really fucking annoying. They had a habit of breaking into his sleep just when he’d gotten comfortable, showing him things he had absolutely no intention of dealing with in a constructive manner, and then slipping away again before he could make any sort of sense again.

Dreams, these days, were just about the entirety of his existence, along with a smattering of astral projection sprinkled in at seemingly-random moments just to keep him on his toes, and which he normally only identified long after the fact.

This was not ideal. For a great many reasons, which he would be more than happy to list off if he could just think clearly for more than a few minutes. And if he could speak. At this point, he’d take being in a world that was internally consistent, that’d be nice, too.

“You’re actually planning to sleep through the apocalypse, aren’t you?” He heard Aki say, once, though like everything else, he couldn’t tell if it was real or not.

Given how the last time anything had made complete sense was months ago, he was going to say that it wasn’t until proven otherwise. If only because, if it was real, that would mean he’d have to worry about the apocalypse.

...On the bright side, if the world did somehow end, there was at least a non-zero chance that the afterlife would be vaguely coherent. Which would still be a step up from his current situation.

Before Shinjiro was able to fully process that thought, everything shifted once again and he found himself in a dark hallway surrounded by the sounds of rattling chains.

Dreams were definitely far, far more trouble than they were worth.

* * *

  
  


Very, very rarely, despite everything, Shinjiro found himself someplace that made sense, that he couldn’t deny was definitely real, and was able to stay there for longer than usual. Sometimes, this involved Aki, and it mostly just hammered in the fact that, somewhere, he’d clearly messed up, if he could only remember what that ‘somewhere’ was. It had been one of those things that vanished into the haze with everything else, at least until his mind decided it wanted to torment him with it again.

Just as often, these moments of clarity involved a girl with bright red eyes and a contagious grin. Not that she was grinning in anywhere near as many of those moments as Shinjiro would have liked, but he did know that he liked her smile, even if he only remembered her name a quarter of the time. Most of the time, she was out and about, just living her life. Today, however, she was sitting at her desk, writing something in a notebook that presumably wasn’t any sort of schoolwork.

When he took a closer look, it seemed like she was writing some kind of list.  _ Messiah, Sandalphon, Kohryu, Melchizedek _ … Some of those words were more familiar to him than others.

“So, what are you working on?” He asked. She wasn’t quite as likely to respond to him as Aki was, though that was more due to her being more aware of what would and wouldn’t get her strange looks out in public. He was pretty sure she wasn’t any less likely to be able to hear him.

Probably. If he was wrong… well, it wouldn’t matter. Sometimes other people could hear him, and sometimes they couldn’t, and he just needed to be able to live with that. Such as it were.

“There’s… something really important that we have to do,” She said. “Or… those of us who can actually be there. So I’m trying to figure out who I want to be when it happens.”

Those words should not have made anywhere near as much sense to him as they did. “...Please tell me I was imagining things when I heard Aki talking about the apocalypse.”

“...Sorry. But yeah, the world may or may not be ending at the end of the month, it depends on how well we do trying to stop it.” She sounded far too calm about this. “So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“When I go to stop it. What person do you think I should be?” This was a heavy question to ask someone who she couldn’t even see. Especially given how, at times, he wasn’t even fully sure who he was, anymore.

“I- I like you just how you are now.” Admittedly, he could have done with seeing her smile more, but…

Well, it was, apparently, the apocalypse. If there was ever a time to be solemn, this was probably it.

The smile she gave him- or, at least, his general direction- wasn’t quite the same as the one Shinjiro had wanted to see- if he could just remember what that looked like- but it was something, at least.

“I- I know it’s a bit much to expect you to be there, even if you woke up right now. And even if I could get you to wake up, it… would probably be better to do that when we’re sure the world will still be there. But…”

“I’ll figure something out.” Maybe. Possibly. Never mind that one, he didn’t have a lot of control over where he ended up, and two, most people didn’t try to reserve front-row seats to the apocalypse. For obvious reasons.

The girl shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll- you’ll know if it works out. It’s just… whatever happens, I hope I’ll see you on the other end of things.”

That would be nice, wouldn’t it? He could see the appeal in a conversation where the person he was talking to was actually looking at him, and not something on the other side of the room. It was the sort of thing he’d never expected to miss, but… there he was.

And, hey. Maybe the world not ending would somehow be enough to do something about his predicament. And if it did happen… that’d get him out of it, too. There really wasn’t any way he could lose, here. “...Yeah. I’d like that.”

And then he found himself gone from that room, and forced to rewatch something that had happened actual years ago, but at this point, it was almost to be expected.

While most of the conversation quickly slipped away, it was nice to know that, despite everything, he still hadn’t forgotten her face.

* * *

  
  


Her face was still there, in Shinjiro’s mind, when he woke up. It wasn’t entirely clear, but then, the past four months had been weird, the month before his coma was just a blur, and the years immediately before that weren’t too much better. He wasn’t even sure his first year of high school was worth trying to understand- that one was the worst of all.

Aki didn’t seem all that bothered when he told him about it. “I mean, better amnesiac than dead, right?” It was hard to disagree with that, even if part of him sort of wanted to, for some reason.

“Yeah, but… feels like some of the stuff I forgot was… real important.” Entire years of his life, gone without recompense. Just what was he supposed to do about that?

“In that length of time? I’d assume so.”

“...You’re a lot less upset than I thought you’d be. Where’s the worried yelling?” He was pretty sure he could expect that to happen at some point in the near future. It had been just the two of them for so long… if Aki did anything to end up hospitalized for this long, he’d be pissed, and they were far too similar to each other to have very different reactions to this.

“It’s waiting until you’re out of the hospital. And maybe once you’ve remembered how you got into this situation.” Okay, he supposed that was fair. If a lot more patient than he’d known his brother to be in… well… ever.

But then, he’d been unconscious for four months, and had only fuzzy memories of the years before it, so it made sense that maybe things had changed.

At the very least, Shinjiro was glad he wouldn’t be yelled at until he understood what he’d apparently done to make Aki worry. “That might take awhile. There’s… only one thing I really remember.”

“Really? What is it?”

“It’s… a girl. With red hair.”

“...You’ll have to be a bit more specific. I know three girls with red hair, and I’m pretty sure you’ve met them all, too.” Huh. What were the odds of that? Even if he couldn’t give a much better description.

“Um… She smiled a lot.”

“Oh. Kotone, then.” That was fast. But the name did sound right… “I… hadn’t realized the two of you were friends.”

Somehow, the word ‘friends’ didn’t quite seem to fit here, but Shinjiro had enough problems already without trying to figure out exactly what his relationship was with a girl he could barely remember. Particularly given how he’d been in a coma for the past four months. “I mean, it’s been months, she’s probably forgotten about me by now…” But that didn’t sound right, either. “Be nice if I could talk to her, though…”

“I mean, we live in the same building, I could bring her here…” Aki was being far too nice. Seriously, what had happened in the past few years!? “Do you want to see her? It might help you remember something…”

“I-I’d like that.” He hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but… he wasn’t exactly complaining about it, either.

Maybe, if he was lucky, the world could start to make sense again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...All right. Fine. Have a story built around fluff. Just try not to get whiplash when moving on to the next one in the series.
> 
> There's plenty of ways that Kotone can be distinct from Mitsuru and Chidori, but I figured this was the most likely one to come up.


	2. In Which Kotone Tries To Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinjiro properly meets Shiomi Kotone, and proceeds to make very little progress. It's fairly clear that neither of them really know what they're doing.

Perhaps Shinjiro’s memory wasn’t completely ruined, because Shiomi Kotone looked almost exactly the way he’d imagined her. The same red hair pulled into a ponytail, the same eyes that, to the mind of someone who hadn’t eaten in several hours, would look mostly reminiscent of strawberries… an almost perfect recollection.

Almost, but not quite, because there were some things that really couldn’t be pictured without seeing her in person.

Things like how her eyes seemed to glisten with some hidden fire as she entered the room. “I heard everything,” She said. “...Well, it’s less that I heard it, and more that your brother told me, but it’s the same basic thing.”

And there was another thing that almost made sense, but not quite. He and Aki had always considered each other to be family, but they’d never actually said so out loud to each other, let alone anyone else. This was probably at least partially because neither of them really knew anyone else, admittedly, but that was besides the point.

“All… right.” At the very least, Shinjiro could definitely say that this was going to be an experience. “You’re… Kotone, right?” That was the name Aki had said, and it seemed to fit, but he wasn’t exactly going to claim that his memory was all that reliable, at the moment.

“That’s right.” She sat down, fidgeting a little as she tried to get comfortable in her seat. “My name’s Shiomi Kotone, I’m a second year at Gekkoukan High, and I- I’m not sure how much this means to you, but… I’m really glad to see you awake.”

“It’s pretty nice on this side, too. Nice to be in a world that almost makes sense again.” Hopefully, the only reason that it didn’t entirely make sense was the years he’d missed out on. At least then, he’d probably eventually be able to find his footing.

Kotone nodded along, as though those words made perfect sense to her, despite how he’d said them, and would still be hard-pressed to explain them if asked. “I’m sure everyone else at the dorm will be glad to see you, too, once you’re doing better. Or… well… I’m sure some of them will. Probably.” She didn’t sound very sure about this.

“...Everyone else?” Thinking about it… he supposed he must have known more than two people, altogether, even if he wasn’t all that good at making friends.

“The rest of the dorm. Hold on, I’ve got some pictures with me…” And with that, she started rummaging through a bag that had more items in it than he’d thought a person could safely carry. “Here we go, most recent group photo.”

There were… definitely a lot of people in the picture. Aki and Kotone, who Shinjiro recognized, a girl with darker red hair who was familiar in a way he couldn’t place, a blue-haired boy who evoked no sense of recognition whatsoever… There was even a kid there, for some reason, though looking at said kid made him feel uncomfortable, and he had no idea why.

Then again, he had no idea why a lot of things were happening, so at this point, that was just business as usual. “Yeah, this isn’t… it’s not really helping.”

“I guess it can’t be that easy. I mean, I wasn’t really expecting it to be, but… It’d be nice. If things could be solved so easily.” She shook her head. “Never mind. Is there… anything you wanted to know in particular, or…?”

Honestly, there were a lot of things that he wanted to know. Not all of which were necessarily directly relevant to him, and that was… probably what Kotone was asking about. Maybe. Even if there was a good chance she’d be more qualified to talk about other stuff.

But there was one thing that definitely came to mind. “Why’d you come here?”

“Akihiko-senpai said you wanted to see me,” She replied. “Was that wrong?”

“N-no, just…” Maybe it was a good idea to quit while he was ahead. “...Never mind.”

“...All right,” Kotone breathed out. “I’ll need to go soon. It’s mine and Junpei’s turn to get groceries, and if I leave him to it, he’ll blow the whole budget on instant noodles again. I’d thought he’d been getting better for a while, but… it doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “I- I’ll come back sometime in the next few days, all right?”

Somehow, hearing that made Shinjiro feel better, despite how certain he was that he’d messed up somewhere. “Y-yeah. All right.”

She was coming back. He hadn’t somehow fucked up irrevocably- which was good, because he didn’t even know what he would have been ruining yet. He could try and figure things out some more for the next time he saw her.

Sure, if the past couple of days were any indication, he probably wouldn’t get anywhere, but it was still worth a try.

* * *

  
  


Aki showed up the next day, bringing with him a much-needed sense of familiarity that was actually understandable, no matter how many gaps there were that needed filling. He was bundled up more tightly than usual, as though he’d declared a personal vendetta against the gods of winter and was losing miserably. Still, it was supposedly February, so the presence of winter clothes at least made some amount of sense.

“Kotone said she stopped by yesterday. How’d that go?”

Shinjiro shrugged, because there really wasn’t any good way to describe it. “I… think I made things awkward, but she said she’d come back at some point, so…” At least there was that. “I’m… surprised she actually showed up.”

“Of course she did. Kotone helps everyone. Just runs around doing things for people, pushes herself too hard, and then ends up getting really sick while everyone worries about her.” This sounded distinctly like it had been pulled up from personal experience.

“That happen a lot?” She didn’t seem like someone who’d get sick easily. Actually, she was one of the most lively people that Shinjiro had ever seen.

“That… well…” Aki gave this more thought than Shinjiro had seen from him in just about forever. It was kind of frightening. “...I know it’s happened, but I couldn’t tell you when it did.”

Well. That was… maybe something worth being concerned about. It was hard to tell. “Can’t really see that happening. She’s got… a lot of energy.” Really, if they just figured out how to harness it, she could probably be used to fuel the entire hospital. “Really, where did you find her?” How could anyone carry so much fire and still not have burned out?

“She just… moved in at the start of the school year, along with some others. The place filled up really fast, actually… I didn’t really get to talk with her right away, though, since that’s about when I broke my ribs.”

“How’d you do that?” It wasn’t exactly a surprise, or anything- he’d expected Aki to get himself badly injured eventually- but that was honestly not the first serious injury he would have thought would happen.

“Um…” Either Aki genuinely couldn’t remember the answer, or it was something embarrassing. “I don’t… I’m not telling you.”

There was definitely a story there. He’d see if he couldn’t get it out of someone else eventually.

* * *

  
  


Compared to Aki’s apparent new war against the cold, when Kotone came back, she wasn’t dressed for winter at all. It was lightly snowing outside, at least according to what Shinjiro saw when he looked out the window, though odds were none of it would stick. “Aren’t you cold?”

“The cold,” She declared. “Is only going to be a problem to me if I let it be one.” She sounded like she believed it completely.

“...Well, don’t come running to me when you get hypothermia.” Even though she didn’t actually look like she was cold at all, despite the fact that she was clearly dressed for summer in February.

“I won’t,” She promised. “Because I won’t get hypothermia.” Shinjiro wasn’t certain he believed her, when she had the exact same tone as Aki when he was about to do something tremendously stupid. “Trust me.”

He wasn’t sure why, but he was inclined to do so. Never mind that her boasts were completely ridiculous. “...So, I heard Aki broke his ribs at one point?”

“Yep. Kept him away from any major exercise for a whole month- he wanted to go back to training sooner, and he actually might have been able to, but the doctors refused to clear him until they were completely sure he wasn’t just going to hurt himself more.”

“He must have hated that.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so frustrated,” Kotone agreed. “...Though that might just be because he didn’t have access to any of his coping methods. Even if they aren’t the best, presumably they’re supposed to do something.”

Shinjiro nodded along, because this honestly did make sense. “How’d it happen, anyway? He was kinda cagey on the details.”

Unlike Aki, Kotone seemed more than willing to talk about it. “Okay, first, you should probably keep in mind that I wasn’t physically there when it happened, but… he basically picked a fight with something he probably shouldn’t have, I’m… not entirely sure what it was. It was just a mess, and he had to get Mitsuru-senpai to help him out of it.”

That name sounded familiar. “Who’s…?”

“Kirijo Mitsuru. Yes, that Kirijo. I’m not sure she really understands why she lives with us, either, but… she’s all right. A bit frosty, but…” She laughed, just a little, as if she were thinking of some kind of joke that he wasn’t in on. “...That part’s only to be expected, really.”

At the very least, this description was familiar, to the point where he could probably identify the person who had that name, now, even if he couldn’t do much else with it. It was still better than nothing, which was what he’d started with.

“Sounds like that dorm’s just full of characters.”

She nodded. “You have no idea. We haven’t even really started, yet. There’s… well, there’s a lot of us, even if I’m not sure how many of them you… actually spent much time with.” When she put it like that, he almost wondered if it would be possible to get everything back. A lot could happen in three years, and it certainly sounded like a lot had. “So. There’s a lot of ways we could do this. And… a lot of people who will probably at least want to know you’re alive. And things you should probably hear about at some point… Where do you want to start?”

Well, that was definitely… a question. It wasn’t like he had any idea of what a good starting point would be… well, except for one.

“I want to hear about you.” ...Crap, he’d actually said that out loud. “...Since, you know, you're the one who’s actually here.” Okay, he probably sounded a bit less weird now, mission sorta accomplished.

“...Huh. Now I really don’t know where to start.” This was presumably a bad sign. “Like… everything I’d use to describe myself really only makes sense in a certain context. I mean, I’ve got extracurriculars and stuff, but they aren’t really… good descriptions. I mean, my being on the Student Council doesn’t mean that much when it also has the guy who just sleeps through literally every class period he can get away with it before going on to enable everyone’s worst tendencies.” From the way she said it, it seemed that Kotone didn’t have a very high opinion of this person.

“That bad?”

“Arisato Minato has turned another council member into a junior inquisitor, helped someone on the track team who had a knee injury keep hiding it until it almost gave out completely, and was basically the role model for the worst flirt in the school. Also, I think he might have been catfishing our homeroom teacher for a bit, it’d make sense with his…” She winced. “...General actions.”

Shinjiro decided that he probably didn’t want to know. “Am I… going to have to deal with him?” The name sounded completely unfamiliar, but it wasn’t like that necessarily meant anything, these days.

“...Most likely. He lives in the dorms, too. Also, according to that one DNA test, he’s apparently my brother, but given how we’re nothing alike, don’t look similar, and generally don’t get along, I’m taking that with a grain of salt.”

This, of course, just brought up the question of why they would have possibly needed a DNA test, but at this point Shinjiro was sort of resigned to not really understanding anything that was going on.

“...All right, then.” So many questions. So few that he actually wanted to know the answers to. “But, um… we were talking about you, weren’t we? So…” His gaze fell on a pair of headphones. “What sort of music do you like?”

Kotone’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Well, I’ve got a bit of everything, really, but what I really love is…” Apparently, he’d said the right thing.

They never did get back to the gaping hole in his memory, but honestly, he couldn’t say he really minded it. This was just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For people like Aki, winter is terrible. Particularly when he no longer even remembers why he hates the cold so much.
> 
> It's probably a good thing that Kotone's the only person here with any sort of communication skills, or else she'd have to worry about keeping her story consistent with everyone else's. As it is, that's not really a problem at the moment.
> 
> ...Kotone and Minato need a get-along shirt. Or maybe not, because there's a chance they'd just kill each other instead.


	3. In Which Little Progress Is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...Admittedly, this may be partially due to lack of trying.

It probably said something that the thing Shinjiro maintained the most grasp of was music. He wasn’t really a big music person, but just a few snippets of a song from Kotone’s music player was enough for him to know exactly how that song went, even if the individual names and artists were still beyond him.

“It just figures,” He grumbled. “I can’t recall any specific events to save my life, but hand me a playlist…”

“It does make sense, though,” Kotone stated. “It’s easier to remember songs you’ve heard multiple times before, and I’m… not exactly shy with my music. A lot of the time, I’m listening to it in at least one ear.”

Honestly, the thought of calling her shy with anything was almost laughable, as much as it could be when Shinjiro’s understanding of her was limited to a pair of hospital visits. “You’re not listening to it now.”

“Of course not. This is too important for that. You’re too important.” That was… he wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Right now, you don’t deserve anything less than my full attention.”

Right now. Implying that this could change. Or that maybe it had changed, in the past. Thinking about it, it was probably both.

He… sort of hoped it was just the second one, though. That would have been nicer. “Dunno why. We’re… not exactly making a lot of progress.”

“Doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Besides, I can’t say that I missed you and then just decide to not listen to whatever you have to say. Song lyrics aren’t going to change in the course of an afternoon.” She paused. “...Probably. A lot can change in an afternoon. But I’m pretty sure my music’s safe.”

The fact that she wasn’t entirely certain about that was probably something Shinjiro should have found concerning. “Least you got that.”

“Yeah…” She agreed, though a lot of the… intensity that she normally brought with her had vanished. “At least there’s that…”

For some reason, she seemed… really sad, all of a sudden. It wasn’t something he liked seeing. It just wasn’t right, seeing Kotone without any of her bright spark.

“I mean… it must be nice. To have something like that to rely on.” How was he supposed to know how to make her feel better? He didn’t even really know where he lived.

“Well, you aren’t wrong, just…” She shook her head. “I should probably get going soon. It’s getting late. According to this, anyway.” She tapped on her watch.

Shinjiro wasn’t sure what to think of the watch. He felt… something… when he looked at it, but he had no idea what that something was. Assuming that he wasn’t just imagining things. “Make sure you get home safe, all right?”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” And, all of a sudden, her confidence was back. “I’ll be just fine.”

* * *

  
  


According to the doctors, Shinjiro’s recovery was going well.

Or. Well. That was what he’d been told to say. Their actual reaction had involved some amount of shock, as he was apparently recovering at a nearly unprecedented rate, one that they hadn’t thought was possible for a human until recently.

The fact that this rate of recovery was only nearly unprecedented was probably one of those things he should have asked about, but this probably wasn’t the time to be led around by rampant curiosity. And it wasn’t like there was a really good way to ask that question.

Besides, according to them, by all logic, he should have died months ago. Either they had no idea what they were doing, or there actually was something up, but they’d somehow failed to figure out what it was over the course of four months. He didn’t think that was very helpful.

Lack of information aside, Aki was thrilled to hear about how well Shinjiro was recovering.

“Huh. Guess you’ll be getting out of here sooner than we thought.” Right. Of course. Never mind that Shinjiro hadn’t had any expectations to begin with. He wouldn’t even know where to start forming them. This entire experience was probably the weirdest thing to ever happen to him.

...Except that seemed wrong, for some reason. Which only served to make the whole thing even weirder.

“Yeah, I guess… not sure what I’ll do after that, though.” The logical thing would have been to repeat his third year of high school, except that he also remembered just about nothing from the first two. “Don’t think I can just… pick up where I left off, if I don’t know where that was.”

“...Kotone said things were going well.”

Kotone was one of the most optimistic people Shinjiro had ever met. “Remembering more than I did when I first woke up isn’t that much of an improvement. It wasn’t even an event, just… stuff.” He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to describe it. “You sure she was talking about me?”

“Pretty sure. I mean, I wasn’t asking her about the Student Council, or the tennis team, or the library committee…” The fact that Aki actually needed to count out all of Kotone’s extracurriculars probably said something. “...Oh, and she said she’s sorry she can’t visit today, but it’s her week to do Student Council stuff, so…”

There were a lot of questions Shinjiro could have asked, but he decided against it. “That’s fine.” Really, he wasn’t sure why she was apologizing. With all those commitments she apparently had… it was kind of surprising she’d found time for him at all. If he’d known about them beforehand, he would have expected her to just ignore him due to being too busy. Even if she seemed far too nice to do something like that. “She… never had to come deal with me to begin with.” Not that he wasn’t glad she was making the effort, but…

It seemed like a lot of work to go to, for a case that might have been doomed not to make any progress. He… really wasn’t sure he was worth it.

“She still seems to want to.” As much as Aki made sense, it was still kind of weird. “I’m glad. It’s nice to see you have other friends now. Means I don’t have to worry so much.”

“Pretty sure this should be the other way around.” He paused. “You… do have friends, right? You haven’t just been visiting me and trying to punch away your problems?”

Sure, provoking his brother probably wasn’t the nicest thing to do… but it was the most familiar thing he could do. And something that could give him answers, instead of just more questions.

“You’ve met Kotone.” All right, that was a fair point. “Oh, and there’s Junpei and Mitsuru, too. I mean, you haven’t really met them, but…” Familiar names, at least. The fact that Aki completely failed to mention how one of his friends was associated with the Kirijo Group was, at once, sort of frustrating, and also completely expected.

Despite being older, and presumably at least a little wiser and more mature, it was nice to see that his brother hadn’t changed a bit.

* * *

  
  


There continued to be no progress on the memory front. Kotone didn’t outwardly seem discouraged, but she also suggested that they move on to something else for a bit, that something being board games. It wasn’t that bad, aside from when game pieces would end up under the furniture due to Shinjiro’s shaky motor control.

“You know, maybe this would be more fun if Akihiko-senpai were here, too…” She mused, moving her piece. “Or… it’d be more chaotic, anyway. Chaos seems to follow us around sometimes.”

Shinjiro was willing to bet that was because Aki was generally incapable of keeping himself out of trouble, assuming that he hadn’t gotten any better at turning down a challenge. “Yeah. More pieces for me to mess up.” Between the two of them, they were generally capable of figuring out where everything had been, but he wasn’t going to pretend that it was definitely perfect.

“Don’t be like that. You’re doing fine. Take it from the person who's actually been picking up the pieces.” Sometimes, he wondered how someone as eager to help as Kotone could even exist. “Besides, it’s… nice, getting to spend time with you again.”

And thus, as always, it came on back to what he was missing.

“Would’ve thought you’d have gotten sick of me by now.” It wasn’t like they had that much to talk about. Particularly when their conversations kept going on circles like this. “I mean, it… can’t be fun, having to start over like this.”

“It’s better than not having you here at all.” That was fast.

“...You know, Aki said basically the same thing.”

“You should listen to him. Dumb as he can be sometimes, your brother’s actually pretty smart.” It was sort of impossible for Shinjiro to argue with that. Even if it almost felt like he should have. “And it’s… not exactly like going back all the way to the start. When we first met… I’m not sure you really thought much of me.”

So his past self had apparently been an idiot. Good to know. “Why’s that?”

“Well, you didn’t seem to think much of anyone, really,” Kotone corrected herself. “Not even Akihiko-senpai, but that might have just been because he’d done something stupid and ended up with broken ribs.” Yes, that probably would have kept him annoyed with Aki for a while. “For the rest of us… I guess you just didn’t expect us to try and get close.” She looked a bit like she wanted to say more, but then, she always looked that way. It was almost like it was part of her normal expression, except that Shinjiro knew full well why that look would be there.

“You still did, though.” It wasn’t a question. Somehow, this girl had grown to care about him enough not just to visit him, but to keep coming back even when it was clear he didn’t remember much of anything about her.

“I did,” She nodded. “And if I went back in time, knowing what was going to happen, I’d do it again.” She handed him some dice, by now probably well aware that they’d just end up under a table or something. “Now, I’m pretty sure it was meant to be your turn?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kotone and Minato trade off their Student Council duties so they're never both at the same meeting. Presumably, this is how Hidetoshi's Social Link ended up getting so out of hand.


	4. In Which Relationships Are Mended

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinjiro receives several visits, most of which don't make any particular sense.
> 
> He's pretty sure they're helping with something, though

“Um… hello?” The next person to visit Shinjiro wasn’t one of the normal crowd, which probably didn’t mean much, given how he only had two regular visitors. She had long, red hair, and eyes which were almost exactly the shade between red and orange. She seemed familiar in some way, but not enough that he’d be able to make any sort of guess as to why. “You’re the one that Shiomi-san has been visiting recently, right?”

“Yeah. Why do you ask?” Something about this girl… she seemed off, though he couldn’t tell if it was in a good way or a bad way. “...Who are you, anyway?”

“...Yoshino Chidori. I’m trying to get in contact with someone who visited me a few times, before he stopped. I remember Shiomi-san being with him one of those times, so… I sound stupid, don’t I? But this is all I have to go on.”

Under normal circumstances, Shinjiro would agree that her particular methods didn’t seem that workable, and that it sounded like a lot of effort to go through for someone who had only visited her a few times. But then, if Kotone disappeared, he wouldn’t have been happy at all.

“You… really miss this guy, huh?”

She nodded, a look of relief on her face. “That’s right. I… don’t really have anyone else, at least that I recall. But Junpei… he came to see me.” The name she mentioned seemed familiar. He thought he’d heard Aki mention someone with that name, once. “And… I’d like to see him again.”

“So… you want me to pass a message, or something?” He checked, trying to pretend that her situation didn't sound incredibly like his own.

“If- if you don’t mind.” And then she vanished, and within a few seconds, it was like she was never there. Even though it was impossible to forget what she’d said, if only because it didn’t make much sense.

Still… He supposed that was something to mention the next time Kotone visited. If only because she was marginally more likely than Aki to know what he was talking about.

* * *

  
  


“Yoshino-san came and talked to you?” Kotone sounded sort of surprised, when he brought up the topic. “That’s odd. She doesn’t really talk to anyone.”

He’d gotten that impression of her. She didn’t seem like she was really comfortable with human contact. “Yeah, well… apparently there’s someone that she’s looking for. One of your friends?”

“One of my- oh. Right. Yeah, I think I know who she was talking about… might even be able to get him in, I just need to think of a good excuse…” The way she talked, it was almost like she was plotting something nefarious.

“Um… could you please explain what’s going on?” Even if he never figured out what had happened in the past few years, he could at least have some understanding of what was happening now that he was awake.

“Oh. Right. So. Yoshino-san. The person she wants to talk to is actually a good friend of mine. He’s from the dorm, we’re in the same class, we both agreed that Minato-kun probably shouldn’t have been encouraging Tomochika to hit on the tennis advisor… It was only natural that we’d get along. And then, one day at the start of September, he started talking about how he’d met a girl.”

It did not elude Shinjiro that Kotone’s story didn’t fully mesh with Yoshino’s, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to directly ask about that. “And then what happened?”

“Well, Junpei was really excited about this. And I… well, I wasn’t around for most of it, but then Yoshino-san… well, she got really sick. Or she already was, and it just got worse… I don’t know.” She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter all that much to her, and maybe it didn’t, if most of how she knew Yoshino was secondhand. “Junpei kept visiting her, even when things kept getting worse, until- until she started to recover.” She stumbled over her words, for a bit.

Shinjiro tried to pretend that the story she was telling didn’t sound a lot like their current situation, except maybe with less amnesia. Or maybe the same amount of amnesia, if Chidori said she’d only received a couple of visits… He decided that maybe it’d be better not to think about it at all.

“So, why’d he stop? Sounds like they had a pretty sweet deal going on.”

“That’s… well…” And Kotone started stumbling over her words again, before shaking her head. “Things got really busy. I mean, by that point, everything had already gone to hell a long time ago, but then it started getting even worse… Things only really started to get better once you woke up. I think, in the rush of everything, he just… let himself forget.”

The way she put it, it almost sounded like there’d been a massive crisis that Shinjiro had only just missed. Except that nobody else had mentioned anything of the sort. “Just like that?”

She nodded. “Just like that. But this is… I’m sure it’s something I can remind him about. If Yoshino-san remembers him, then… then there’s a chance I can remind him of her.”

She sounded almost desperate. Shinjiro almost wished he hadn’t said anything.

“...Don’t push yourself too hard, okay, Koto?” Was that too familiar? That was too familiar. Shit. He hadn’t even meant to call her that, it had just… come out.

She blinked at him. “...All right. But… only if you do the same. Got that, Shinji?” As though there was nothing strange about this at all. Maybe for her it wasn’t.

But, just like everything else, he had no idea how to unpack that, so he’d ignore it for the time being. That seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to handle this.

Besides… with how similar his and Yoshino’s stories already were… wasn’t that a bit too much of a coincidence?

* * *

  
  


Time passed. Yoshino didn't come back. Shinjiro wasn’t sure if that meant the person she was looking for had come back and she was too busy being happy about that to remember him, or if he hadn’t and she’d just given up on it.

He didn’t tell Aki about her, either. Something told him he wouldn’t like the route that particular conversation would take.

Even if things could get just as weird when he wasn’t the one picking a topic. “So, I… finally got around to telling everyone at the dorm that you woke up.”

Given how long it had been, Shinjiro would have hoped he would have gotten around to it sooner, but maybe he’d just been hoping that he’d remember something. “Really?”

“Yeah. They’re… Well, even if they weren’t that close to you, they’re still happy for me, so… I guess that’s a good thing?” He was sort of surprised Aki could recognize that much. Social cues weren’t really his thing. “And some of them are interested in seeing you, but… we thought it would be better to wait on that.”

That was probably a good idea. From what Shinjiro had heard about the people living in Iwatodai Dormitory, they sounded like a chaotic bunch. “Really? Who was it?”

“Well, there’s Mitsuru. She’s… a bit cold, kind of intimidating…” This was not a convincing argument to get Shinjiro to let her into his hospital room. “But… we were in the same class for a while. And she stops really being scary once you’ve got her to open up. Which… you’ve got a head start on. Kind of.”

Somehow, Shinjiro wasn’t sure that ‘time mysteriously spent pre-amnesia’ was what most people considered to be a head start. “Anyone else?”

“There’s Ken.” That. That name. It was definitely familiar somehow. “Eleven years old, doesn’t really have anywhere else to stay, so we let him live with us… he’s a good kid.”

This was… it was far too familiar. “Brown hair, brown eyes, likes wearing orange?” He checked.

For a moment, it was like lightning jumped behind Aki’s gaze. “You remember?”

“Not really, but…” The kid. The kid was important, somehow. But… he also didn’t want to see him. It… just didn’t feel like a good idea. “Well. You don’t see a lot of eleven-year-olds around a high school dormitory. So I guess that stood out.” If only he could explain the hollow feeling that he got every time he thought about him… but maybe this was a topic better left buried. “...Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I… I guess I knew it was a long shot. And… I’m not sure why I want you to remember so badly, anyway, when-” He cut himself off there.

“…Aki?”

“...We were fighting. I’m not… I don’t even remember what it was about. But I was worried about you, and you wouldn’t let me help, and it just kept getting worse, and then eventually…” What was it about him getting hurt that seemed to kill everyone’s sparks?

“Would it help if I said I don’t remember what it was about, either?” Shinjiro supposed that, given the subject matter, a halfhearted glare was only to be expected. “And given where I ended up… if I remember, I’ll tell you, and then you can yell at me all you like.”

“...But I don’t want to yell at you. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Somehow, this was almost worse than being yelled at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shinji and Chidori could be amnesia buddies. They just don't have the time for that.
> 
> Does Shinji have a strong enough emotional attachment to Ken to have some recognition of him? Probably. Is it one he'd want to follow up on? No. No, it is not. As it is, this is probably a good thing.


	5. In Which Shinjiro Forgets What Day It Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To be fair, he did recently wake up from a coma.
> 
> This does not make the ensuing crisis any easier for him to deal with.

On Sunday, Kotone came into the hospital room with a spring in her step that hadn’t been there that last time that Shinjiro saw her. “Good morning!” She chirped, her cheeks tinged slightly pink.

It was nice to know that, despite her previous boasts, she did, in fact, feel the cold. “Morning,” He greeted her in return. “You’re here early.”

”No school today,” She pointed out, sitting down with her bag. He wasn’t sure why she had her bag with her when she didn’t have school, but maybe she just liked having all of her things with her. “And I wanted to see you.”

Those words could have meant any number of things, but Shinjiro was still happy to hear them.

“Still, I… would have expected Aki to be the one that came here.”

Kotone shook her head. “No, he’s… preoccupied, today.” The look on her face was almost gleeful. “See, he has this… problem, with being too popular with girls. And, at some point, they found out where he lived. I’ve got an idea for how to help him, but… it’s going to take a bit of time.”

Whatever she was plotting, it was going to be a chaotic mess. “So you decided to come right here.”

She shrugged. “Well. I know what my priorities are.” He really wasn’t sure what to think about that. “Besides, it’ll be easier to work on dealing with them during the week, when they don’t have the chance to see me coming and going.” Yes, there was definitely going to be some chaos involved.

“...You’re not going to get in trouble for it, are you?” He was pretty sure he already knew the answer, but it was still a good idea to ask.

“Not so long as I don’t get caught.” Well. That was vaguely concerning. “Anyway, Shinji, I- I wanted to give you something.”

From her bag, which was still so full that Shinjiro had no idea how she could carry it, Kotone produced a pair of black winter gloves.

“I know you’re probably not going to be needing them this year,” She admitted. “Whatever doubts people might have about hospitals, they’re not going to forget to turn on the heat. But… they’ll be there if you need them. And stuff.”

Honestly, it was already sort of tempting to put them on. It wasn’t really a pressing need at the moment, but most of the time, Shinjiro just couldn’t get himself to feel properly warm. It had been that way ever since he woke up, and he was starting to get the feeling that that wouldn’t change.

“Well… thanks, Koto.” If he didn’t get around to wearing them that year, he was sure he’d get the chance at some point in the future.

“I wanted to get you a new coat, too, since your old one…” She trailed off. “But after giving it some thought, it seemed just a bit extravagant.”

It would have been useful, though. Even if the doctors had made it clear that, incredible recovery time or not, he wasn’t going to be seeing the outside of the hospital at least until the end of the month, and even that was dependent on his physical therapy being similarly beyond normal human expectations. But it would have been nice, to have another way of being less cold.

...At the same time, she wasn’t wrong. The idea did seem a little too extravagant. Even the gloves felt like more than he should have been able to ask for.

“You… didn’t have to get me this much, either.” Wasn’t it enough that she was trying to help him sort through the memories he should have had?

Kotone glanced to the side. “Yeah, well… just because I don’t have to do something doesn’t mean I can’t want to. And it meant I could make sure Junpei got around to visiting Yoshino-san, so… that’s us having a good day, at least. Especially compared to Akihiko-senpai and Minato-kun.”

“Really? You told me Aki was having problems, but…”

“It shouldn’t be too bad,” She reassured him. “Like I said, I’m working on it. And as for Minato-kun… well, he doesn’t actually have that much to deal with, really. Just the consequences of his actions.” Despite how satisfied she sounded, she looked almost sad when she talked about it. It sort of made Shinjiro wonder, but… it probably didn’t matter.

If it was important, odds were it would come up eventually.

* * *

  
  


In all fairness, Shinjiro was pretty sure his ability to keep track of dates was one of those things he’d have to actively work to reclaim, given how he’d lost all memory of whatever had happened past middle school, and during a sizable part of that, he’d been unconscious. Whatever was marked on the calendar, odds were he wouldn’t know about it unless he asked.

At the same time, he would probably have enjoyed finding out what the date was in literally any way other than it had happened, which was a nurse coming in to check on him a few minutes after Kotone left.

“Oh? Did someone leave their gloves here?”

“Those are mine.” He probably shouldn’t have been so attached to them already, but… it was something he owned, and that he sort of knew where they came from.

“A gift from that Shiomi girl?” It probably said something about the frequency of Kotone’s visits that a number of the staff actually knew her name. It was still a bit weird, to hear someone else talking about her like that.

“Y-yeah, that’s right.” Come to think of it, there was probably a reason the only thing he really talked with the hospital staff about was his own health. “How’d you guess?”

“There are only two people who ever seem to visit you.” Okay, yes, that was fair. And despite what he’d been told, he couldn’t imagine a lot of other people still being attached enough to him to bother showing up. “And, given what today is, it was a simple enough guess to make.”

“What… today is?” Shinjiro repeated, trying to think back. What month was it, again? February, right… which meant… “...I forgot about Valentine’s Day, didn’t I?”

In fairness, he could count the number of times he’d received chocolate for Valentine’s Day on one hand, and still have fingers left over, so it wasn’t like remembering the holiday’s existence had ever been a major priority for him. But this still felt like something that shouldn’t have taken him off guard, even if Kotone had apparently decided to forego the candy in favor of accessories. Which would admittedly be more useful. But still.

“She didn’t mention it to you?”

He shook his head. Maybe she’d assumed he already knew about it. But even then, it still felt like the sort of thing that should have come up somewhere in the conversation. It was as though Kotone had become so used to talking around subjects Shinjiro wasn’t ready to deal with, she’d forgotten that, for some of them, discussion might have actually been necessary.

Subjects like what their relationship had been, before everything happened and he forgot.

Except that, if that were the answer… he really, really wasn’t sure how to deal with that possibility. Maybe he’d have been better off pretending that the option didn’t exist.

After all, what was the point of wondering about somebody’s feelings when he didn’t even remember her?

* * *

  
  


The nurse left to do something else just a minute later, leaving Shinjiro with peace, quiet, and a pair of comfortable-looking gloves that he could probably use to fight off the usual chill that was starting to creep back in, except that looking at them would mean acknowledging them, and also the questions that were brought up by their very existence.

What did it matter if Kotone liked him? He barely remembered anything about her, and she clearly knew this, given how it had been the basis for most of their interactions up until this point.

She hadn’t exactly been pushing for him to remember things, either. Which actually was sort of strange, when the reason he’d wanted to see her in the first place was so that she could help with that, given how even the incredibly faint recollection he’d had of her was more than he’d gotten for anything else.

“...Maybe I should just stop thinking ‘bout this before I give myself a headache…” He mumbled, shaking his head. Anything Kotone might or might not have felt only mattered if she decided to act on it, and she’d clearly decided to be more patient with him than he would have expected from anybody, so it wasn’t like this was something he urgently needed to figure out.

It just would have been nice to have a bit more idea what was going on.

As it was, he was still stuck in a hospital room with a near-permanent chill seeped into his bones, his only clues coming from someone who had left him with a pair of gloves and very little explanation for any of it.

Eventually, he decided to push everything out of his mind and try to pretend that that morning had never happened. As long as he never thought about Kotone’s existence in anything nearing a romantic context, everything was going to be just fine.

...Of course, that would probably have been easier if he wasn’t already giving into the temptation to try putting on the gloves. They were comfortable, and did well enough at keeping out some of the omnipresent chill. All he had to do was not think about where they’d come from.

...It wasn’t working out very well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the more fun parts of writing this is seeing how long it takes for Kotone to abandon subtlety. She's still trying, but... I honestly almost expected her to crack sooner.
> 
> As it is, she's somehow managed to reach the point of being both too obvious about her feelings, but also not obvious enough. I'm not entirely sure how that happened, and I'm the one writing this thing.


	6. In Which Some Explanation Is Given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past and the current situation at the dorms are both discussed, but that doesn't make either of them really easy to understand.

It was almost a disappointment when Aki was the next person to visit Shinjiro. Sure, it meant that he didn’t have to think about his newest mental crisis that he was trying to ignore until it existing was less of a crisis, but at least it meant there might have been some sort of resolution.

“So, how was your day yesterday?” He asked, hoping desperately that his brother wouldn’t notice the gloves that he was still wearing.

“It was…” Aki trailed off, as though he were trying to search for the perfect word, and drawing a complete blank. “Well. I didn’t get to do much. See, there’s these girls who keep following me around everywhere...”

“Oh, yeah, Kotone said something about that…” He hadn’t fully believed it, it sounded like something out of a manga, but apparently it was true enough. “Is it really that bad?”

“Not most of the time, but it was Valentine’s Day yesterday… which is probably why my locker was stuffed full of chocolate this morning.” He sounded more annoyed than anything, which made sense. Aki had never really liked sweets. “I couldn’t really leave the building, but… at least I wasn’t having the worst day.”

Even without being able to see the dormitory situation for himself, Shinjiro found the implications of this terrifying. “It got worse than that?”

“Apparently one of the guys in the second year was dating half of the girls in the building, and a few from school, at the same time and nobody noticed until yesterday. Those of us who weren’t really involved in it just… cleared out and let him deal with things, because the alternative was getting in the way of an angry Mitsuru or Takeba.”

Shinjiro shuddered. Even with as little knowledge as he had about the situation, he knew enough to recognize that was not a position he ever wanted to be in.

It also sort of explained something Kotone had said. “...Guess he sort of brought it on himself, though.” Even if he wasn’t sure how it would have gotten to that point to begin with. People normally talked about that sort of thing, right?

...Then again, his own relationship status was one of those things he didn’t know, and was currently choosing not to think about, so he guessed he didn’t have a lot of room to start throwing stones.

Aki nodded. “Kotone said that, too, before she and Junpei made a run for it. I’m… not really sure where they ended up, actually…”

Shinjiro had some idea. Not that he was going to bring that up, because that would involve questions he had no way or intention of answering at this moment.

“Still, how do these sort of things even happen? You guys actually talk to each other, right?” It was just… the sheer failure of communication that would be necessary for a disaster on that scale… people weren’t exactly his strong suit, but he still wasn’t sure he could managed something like that if he tried.

“We… well…” What was with the hesitation? “I’m… pretty sure we do… sometimes… Like, I can’t really think of any times it’s been all of us, but I know they happened.”

“Pretty sure Koto has some pictures you could borrow, if you need reminding.” He might not have gotten that much from them, but it’d be more likely to work with someone who was in said pictures, right? “Might give you a bit more help than me.” Even if it was a little strange, that they’d both be having problems with their memories. Aki didn’t even have a diagnosis for potential brain damage.

“Maybe… but it’s probably not that important. It’s just… a few patches of static, or something.”

Shinjiro probably shouldn’t have been able to understand what he meant so well, even given the muddled mess his own memory was left as, but it somehow made perfect sense for Aki to put it that way. There were no other words he could have used for it.

At the very least, it did almost kind of explain the apparent situation from the previous day, and for now, that was enough.

* * *

  
  


Aki stuck around for a bit longer, the conversation moving from the mess that had happened in the dormitory the previous day, to speculation of how Arisato Minato had managed to acquire so many relationships without anyone finding out about them, to the sort of insane schedules that he and Kotone both kept, and eventually returning to the subject of Valentine’s Day, and just what Aki was going to do with all that chocolate.

“I think the girls at the dorm can have some of it, to make up for everything that went down yesterday, but… there might still be too much of that. And it’d feel wrong to just throw it away…”

It would also be a waste of what was presumably good chocolate, but Shinjiro didn’t think either of them were particularly bothered about that.

“You may as well just pass it out to everyone, then. If you’ve got that much.” Really, this was the kind of situation he still wasn’t sure could even exist, and he was seeing it. “Probably be enough to make them sick, though.” At the very least, they’d end up being sick of chocolate. “Least you won’t have to worry about this anymore next year.”

“At least there’s that,” Aki agreed with a sigh. “I don’t know why they keep doing this. They never even bothered telling me their names.” Had they really not done that? Or had he just forgotten? Shinjiro supposed it didn’t matter, if this ended up happening either way.

“Never thought you’d end up being popular like this,” He stated. “Course, that may just be how I remember you from when we were kids, but…” The point still stood. When they were younger, Aki had latched onto Shinjiro as a new part of his family, and then never let go, while completely failing to get close to anyone else, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying. As nice as it was to know that his brother had other people now, even if most of them weren’t more than nuisances, it was still sort of strange to think about.

“I dunno how it happened, either. If I did know things could get this way, I’d figure out how, and then not do that. Least Mitsuru’s good at getting them to go away… Maybe a bit too good...”

It probably said something that those words were enough to make Shinjiro shiver despite how he had yet to meet Aki’s friend in person, at least that he could remember.

Still… it was hard to believe she could be too good at that sort of thing, when those girls clearly made Aki uncomfortable. “Sounds like she’s a good friend.”

“Yeah, she- she really is. You sure you don’t want to meet her yet?”

Honestly, it was sort of tempting. If only so Shinjiro would have the chance to figure out where some of that familiarity came from.

But at the same time… everything was so weird now, he couldn’t imagine things would be improved by adding another person to the mix. “I can wait. Least until she’s…” He was going to say ‘cooled down,’ but… something about that word choice just felt wrong. “She might still be upset from yesterday for a while.”

“Yeah… I don’t think anyone had a good day yesterday. Well. Maybe Junpei, but...”

Kotone might have had a nice day, too, but Shinjiro really didn’t think it would be a good idea to bring that up. He could tell that it would only end in disaster.

Besides, this was the most normal conversation he’d had with his brother since he woke up. So he wanted to take the time to enjoy it.

After all, if the two of them were slowly returning to normal… then maybe, one day, so would everything else.

* * *

  
  


Sadly, ordinary conversations, while good for relaxation, didn’t quite help so much when it came to dealing with things he didn’t have a decade of prior experience handling. Things such as Kotone, and everything that Shinjiro was trying his hardest not to think about, and still failing.

“I have some more pictures with me today,” She stated, as though she hadn’t come in just a couple of days ago and left him even more confused than he’d been before. “It took a bit of effort to get ahold of them- I had to ask my friend Aigis about them, and there were a lot of hoops we had to jump through to get them printed- but it’s a good memory, so I wanted to share it with you.”

Well, it couldn’t be any less helpful than the last photo he’d seen. “Bring them out, then.”

“All right, I will.” She started rummaging through her bag, which was just as overstuffed as ever. She wasn’t only looking in the bag, however, as her gaze fell on Shinjiro’s hands. “...Oh. You’re wearing them.”

He shrugged. “I mean, they’re pretty warm, so…” Admittedly, some of the cold had faded away since Kotone had entered the room, so he probably didn’t need to be wearing them at the moment, but she seemed happy to see him with the gloves on. “It’s… nice.”

“...I’m glad you like them.” Her eyes flitted back to the bag for a moment. “Oh, here they are!”

There were five pictures, each of them clearly taken on the same floor of one building, absolutely none of them being posed for. “What’s this from?”

“It’s… it was a dinner party, sort of. Or, that’s what it turned into, anyway. One of our friends- Fuuka-chan, this girl right here, with the teal hair- had been spending the year learning how to cook, but it was slow progress, so the two of us agreed to help her out… and we ended up making enough food for everyone else.”

The pictures did have a lot of food in them. And whether it was due to the quality of the photos, or some residual memory, Shinjiro could almost imagine how each dish had tasted. It left him with a feeling that was almost comforting, if tinged with the regret that he couldn’t truly remember it, as well as something else that he couldn’t seem to name.

“It… looks like everyone’s enjoying themselves.”

Kotone nodded. “Looking back… I think this was the only time when we were all happy together. Before, a lot of us were having problems really relating to each other, and after… This wasn’t very long before everything started to go downhill.” Her fingers trailed over one of the pictures, where the kid- Ken, he was pretty sure that was his name- was sneaking bits of meat to a white-furred dog under the table. “But… we didn’t realize that yet. We were even… talking about maybe doing it again, sometime.”

That didn’t surprise him. Even if he wasn’t sure about most of the people involved yet, the pictures made it look like a lot of fun. They were all smiling and having a good time. “Too bad we never got around to it, huh?”

“Yeah… I was thinking we could maybe do something similar once you’ve gotten better, but… that’ll probably be a while, and I’m… not sure how many of us are going to keep in touch, after Akihiko-senpai and Mitsuru-senpai graduate. For the past couple of weeks… it’s like they’ve completely forgotten we ever used to have times like this.”

Shinjiro supposed that the drama that came about from half of the girls in the building dating the same person would do a lot to ruin that kind of thing, even if they’d only just found out about it.

“That… I guess it’d be nice.” The version of himself in the picture looked happy, as if there was no place that he would rather be. If only he had some idea how to get that back… “No reason we can’t try it, with whoever sticks around.” He’d have to figure something out eventually, right?

“...I guess not. Of course, you might think differently once you’ve actually met everyone…” Kotone sounded more sad than anything, now. “It… took a while for you to open up, the first time.”

She kept saying things like that, but seeing what that had apparently gotten him… “Looks like it was worth it, though.” Not that he could make any judgements until he actually talked to those people, but… if that was what the end result looked like…

Maybe he couldn’t quite get it back. He didn’t even really know what ‘it’ was.

But it was nice, to think that one day he could maybe have something close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's probably a story to be told in Kotone convincing Aigis to print photos from her memory banks, as well as the two of them fumbling through the process of doing so, but I have no idea how I would tell it.
> 
> It's hard to tell when it isn't her POV, but Kotone isn't having the best month, either.


	7. In Which Normal Is Probably A Relative Term

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whether or not it is, it's safe to say that certain things maybe don't quite fit the definition.

Shinjiro honestly had no idea what Kotone had done to Aki’s fangirls, her plans bever being mentioned beyond the fact that they existed. Still, he assumed she had done something, because Aki started suddenly having a lot more time free.

“I mean, some of them still bother me,” He said, “But not as many as there used to be. Might not be a permanent thing, but… may as well take advantage while it’s there.”

“Yeah, I guess…” He wondered if his brother paid enough attention to things that happened at school to be able to tell him if any unplanned chaos had happened in the lower grades. It would probably seem a bit weird if he asked. “Be nice having you around more often.” Really, it would mostly be nice that his visitors would be a bit more consistent, maybe, but this also worked.

Aki nodded. “Kotone seemed happy when I told her I could visit you more.”

Well. That was one possible motive for… whatever she’d done. “She seems happy about a lot of things.” And sad about just as many, but he wasn’t sure what he could say about that, other than that he didn’t like seeing her sad. “Maybe I’ll even see both of you at the same time, for once.”

That’d be nice. His two favorite people, right there with him. That they were the only two people he really had extended interactions with weren’t really a factor in this.

“I guess it’d be nice to see how you get along,” Aki agreed. “It’s… still a bit strange to think about.”

In one of the pictures Kotone had showed Shinjiro, the two of them had been standing together and passing out food that they’d clearly both worked on, and everyone had been there. Aki had definitely been present for that.

“It’s… sort of the other way around, for me.” Even with so much of the past being a blur, Kotone had been someone he could never help but remember, at least a little. “I… can’t really imagine not knowing her.” Maybe it was just that her face had been the one thing he could recall, after waking up. But that was as good a reason as any, wasn’t it?

“Yeah, but I don’t think I’ve ever…” He trailed off with a wince.

“...Aki?”

“Shinji, do you ever have this… voice in your head, telling you that things… aren’t right?”

Of course not. He could see how things had been screwed up by himself, without any need for mysterious voices that were probably a figment of his brother’s imagination. “...Have you been staying up late to study, or something?”

“Why would I do that? There’s only a couple of weeks left, really.” Right, that was a fair point… even if it was strange to think he’d missed three whole years of high school.

At least he hadn’t lost the whole thing. If only because the coma and the memory loss meant that he obviously wasn’t prepared to graduate just yet. But it was something.

“Yeah, but I have no idea what sort of bad habits you’ve picked up recently.” Aside from, maybe, picking fights with people he shouldn’t have, if he wanted to believe Kotone on that. And, admittedly, he had little reason not to believe Kotone, particularly when nobody was offering alternative possibilities.

It was just that there was so much currently outside of his reach, and that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to get to while he was still hospitalized. And every moment he stayed there was another moment where everything remained beyond his understanding.

“I swear, it’s like you don’t even trust me.” ...Well. Almost everything.

Despite everything, Aki always remained the same.

* * *

  
  


“You… want to see the both of us at once?” Kotone sounded almost surprised, when he brought up the idea to her. He wasn’t sure why. He was pretty sure she’d suggested it, before.

He shrugged. “Thought it… might be nice.” Not that he didn’t enjoy the interactions they had already- really, he was lucky she still cared enough to spend time with him at all- but it would have been interesting. “I mean, you don’t have to, but…”

“No, you’re right, that does sound nice. I just… didn’t think it’d be something you’d want. You’re not exactly the most social person.”

“I think I can handle having two people around me at the same time.” And he could see how they got along, and maybe that would give him some clues as to how everyone he supposedly knew fit together. “And it’s… not bad, having you around.”

Those words were, admittedly, a bit of an understatement. He’d actually grown to look forward to Kotone’s visits, even if he still only fully understood about half of what she was talking about. It was… surprisingly easy, spending time with her.

“Well… thanks.” From the tone of her voice, she knew exactly what he meant. Which was good, because he didn’t think he could have explained it if she asked. “I- I like spending time with you, too.” For some reason, she didn’t look directly at him as she said that.

...After thinking about it, Shinjiro decided that maybe he didn’t want to ask. “Sort of figured. I mean, you… keep coming around here.”

“Just because you might already know is no reason not to tell you,” She replied. “Being reminded of stuff like that… it can really help, sometimes.” She sounded surprisingly serious about it.

“What are you, a therapist or something?”

“I’m genuinely considering it. A lot of the friends I’ve made over this past year have needed my help dealing with their personal problems, and honestly, if this is going to keep happening, I might as well get paid for it.” It must have been nice, to have a potential career path laid out like that.

“Sorry, I don’t have any cash on me.” Did he have any money at all? Probably not, given the circumstances, but it was still worth worrying about.

She shrugged. “Oh, well. I’m pretty sure that’d be considered a conflict of interest, anyway.”

He wouldn’t know anything about that, so he decided to take her word for it. And try not to think too hard about the potential implications, which had stopped being willing to leave him alone days ago. Never mind that he just wanted them to go away.

Something told him that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.

* * *

  
  


As it turned out, trying not to think about something didn’t do anything to make it go away.

The next time someone visited Shinjiro, it wasn’t Aki or Kotone. It wasn’t even Yoshino, though it would have been nice to hear if Kotone had been able to help her.

Instead, it was a foreign-looking girl wearing headphones, who he thought he might have seen in one or another of Kotone’s pictures before, but who didn’t give him more than the vaguest sense of familiarity.

“I heard you had woken up,” She stated without introducing herself. “And that Kotone-san has been visiting you, though with the first part, the second was not really a surprise.”

“All… right?” He blinked at her. “Um… who are you, again?” If other people had been told he’d woken up, they’d had to have heard he didn’t remember any of them, right?

“...Ah. My apologies for being rude. My name is Aigis.” So, apparently, he’d been right about her being a foreigner. “Kotone-san is… a very dear friend to me.”

“She’s… mentioned you, before.” Names, it turned out, were simple enough to remember when he was presented with so few of him. “You helped her get some pictures, right?”

“That is correct.” She nodded, shakily, like a puppet on unsteady strings. “I agreed to help her with that matter because it clearly meant a great deal to her. Which comes to what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What is it?” He was starting to get a bad feeling about this… or, at least, the feeling he’d had before was starting to get even worse.

“Kotone-san… She cares about you a great deal.” Oh. This was one of those talks. And a confirmation of something he’d been hoping to never have to acknowledge, or at least not until he was back on his feet. “When you were… incapacitated… it took multiple days for her to resume her usual activities.”

That… wasn’t surprising, with how often she visited. But the thought of it… “...I never meant to hurt her.” The words came unbidden, but Shinjiro was sure of them, even without having any idea of their origins. Why would he ever want to do that? It was a completely foreign concept.

“I know. That is the reason I am allowing your continued association.” As if she could ever stop Kotone from doing anything. She was practically a force of nature. And he was sure that Aigis knew this, even as she spoke in something very close to a monotone. “And it is why I am talking to you now, in the hope that you will make the correct decision.”

That would be a lot easier if he had any idea what the correct decision would be in this situation. “Well, what am I supposed to do about it?” He wasn’t even bothering to think of if he liked her back or not- he didn’t remember being the guy she liked to begin with!

“I am not sure. My prior experience in these matters is… fairly unusual, and unlikely to help in this situation. But I can see that, even without your memories, you still care about Kotone-san’s happiness. So perhaps I don’t need to worry.” She then turned and left without another word.

It was nice that at least one of them had faith in him, even if it was probably very misplaced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aigis. Aigis, what are you doing here? Stop.
> 
> ...Apparently, despite never having appeared here before, she's still sick of Kotone's pining.


	8. In Which People Are In Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are also not mentioning potentially important topics.
> 
> On the other hand, everyone's in the same room for once, so at least there's that.

Shinjiro ended up not telling Kotone about Aigis’ visit.

It just didn’t feel like something they needed to talk about. All it would do was bring up things that he wasn’t nearly comfortable with yet, and she’d told him he could take his time in dealing with these things, so he would.

Besides, it wasn’t like they had a lack of other potential topics.

“So, when do you think they’ll let you out?”

“Start of next month at the earliest, and that’s if things keep being…” He wasn’t sure he’d told her, yet, about how the various doctors were still stymied by his recovery. He didn’t know if she’d even believe him if he told her.

“If you keep healing well, right?” She finished. “I… somehow, I don’t think you need to worry about that part.” With how confident she sounded, it was hard not to believe her, even when it was about something she had no way of knowing herself.

“I guess…” He sighed. “Not that I have any idea what to do once I’m out. I mean, I guess I could go back to school, but… dunno if I remember enough for that.”

“I could help you study, if you want,” Kotone offered. “I mean, I know enough that I should be able to help? Actually, most of the dorm would probably be willing… though there’s a few that you definitely shouldn’t accept help from.”

That was… a faster reaction than he expected. “You… seem pretty excited about this.”

“Well, I mean…” She shrugged. “It’d be something we could do together. And… if things actually do go that well, we might even end up in the same class. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I-I guess…” He hadn’t really thought about it, because that would require him to have a proper frame of reference for the world outside of that hospital room. “You’d… want me around for that?” Even with what he’d been told, it was surreal to think about. He was still half-expecting for her to change her mind at any given moment. Surely, she’d have to get sick of him eventually.

“It’d be a nice change of pace. Back before all this happened, we didn’t get to spend all that much time together. I was just so busy… But if we shared a classroom, it’d be easier to find time. You know what I mean?”

She… really did just want to spend time with him, didn’t she? It was just surreal to think about. He’d never thought anyone would want to be around him so badly.

But she did. And no matter how much he was choosing not to think about, he was sure that there was only one way to respond to this.

“...I’d like that, too.”

* * *

  
  


As it turned out, Kotone was right about it being more interesting to play board games with three people instead of two. Shinjiro wondered if part of it was just him being a bit less clumsy, to where it was mostly just his own pieces that ended up scattered, but whatever the option, it was hard to deny he was enjoying himself.

“We should have found time for this sort of thing earlier,” Kotone declared. “It… really is better, having more people around.”

“Is that why you do so much stuff at school?” Aki asked. “I didn’t even know it was possible for someone to do that many things…”

“That… maybe. Sort of. It’s… I don’t know how to describe it, really… It’s like trying to explain how static electricity works to someone who’s never accidentally zapped themself before.” She paused. “...Okay, that may not be the best comparison…”

“I don’t know,” Shinjiro said. “It sounds right to me.” Admittedly, it was in that frustrating, nebulous way where the origins of things was impossible to pin down, and maybe the word choice wouldn’t work for most people, but it was still something.

“Maybe the incomprehensibility is the point?” Aki suggested. “I mean, I sort of get it, but…”

“...Maybe.” And now she just sounded sad again. “I wish I could explain it better, though. I mean, you both deserve a better explanation than that.”

Did they really need it, though? “Sounds like that’s just the way you are. Dunno if I need anything else than that.”

“Yeah, but…” She shook her head. “I want to be able to tell you things. It’s just that, everything I can think of, you’d never understand or believe.”

Aki caught the dice that were tossed his way. “Are you sure about that? You won’t know if you don’t try it.”

“The reason you don’t like going outside during winter is because your soul has a crippling elemental weakness to ice.” Kotone’s tone was completely flat, and devoid of any kind of humor.

“...You know what? I can actually sort of believe that.” Aki reached forward and rolled the dice. “Doesn’t make much sense, but…”

“Like I said. You wouldn’t understand it.”

* * *

  
  


Kotone had been acting incredibly subdued for the entire game, after that particular exchange. Even the fire she carried in her eyes had died down, though a few sparks still smoldered in her gaze. It still felt wrong, for her not to be burning so brightly.

“Hey… Koto, you all right?” Shinjiro asked, after Aki left the room for a bit. He wasn’t sure when he’d come back, but it would probably be enough time to talk.

“Huh?” She blinked at him. “Why do you ask?”

“You just seem… I don’t know. Quiet.” Not that she’d never just sat and listened before, or anything, but it was the best word he could think of. “It’s just… not like you.” At least he understood what she’d meant, before, about things she couldn’t adequately explain.

But then, he’d always had at least some experience with that, from the moment he’d first woken up with an inexplicable memory of her face.

“O-oh…” Kotone’s gaze was firmly on the floor now. “I… didn’t think you’d notice.” As if it would be possible for him to overlook such a sudden change.

“Can I help?” The words came unbidden, but he didn’t want to take them back, even if he could. “I don’t… like it. Seeing you hurt like that.” Except that he was probably part of the cause, and he couldn’t see any way to fix that, short of his memories miraculously deciding to come back. Just thinking about it made his stomach twist.

“...Don’t worry about it. You’ve… done a lot already, just by being here. I really… it means a lot to me. That you’re alive.” She shook her head. “Just… keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

But that didn’t feel like enough. Even if Aigis hadn’t visited, and told him something he’d been trying to ignore, it would still have felt like he should have done more. He should have been able to. But between the amnesia and not even being told what was wrong… what could he possibly do? Nothing.

“All right, I’m back.” As soon as Aki stepped into the room, Kotone erased all traces of the conversation for her gaze, which still lacked most of its signature spark.

Shinjiro hoped it came back soon. It just wasn’t her without it.

* * *

  
  


The next time Aki visited was a couple of days later. There was no sign of Kotone. Shinjiro tried not to be too disappointed.

“You know,” He said, pushing thoughts of the girl’s eyes having lost all of their fire out of his mind, “The docs say that I should be ready to go sometime in the next couple weeks.” Despite how just about everything about past cases like his saying it should have been much to the contrary. He… wouldn’t say he was complaining about it, but at least his room at the hospital was an anchor for the world he’d found himself in. “Might even be able to see you graduate.”

“Yeah, but… You should have been with me for that.”

He shrugged. “Well, there’s always next year. ...Koto’s pretty excited about that, actually. Hopes we’ll end up in the same class.” And it wasn’t like he’d ever been against the idea.

“Yeah, that… sounds like Kotone,” Aki agreed. “...Hey, why do you call her that, anyway?”

...Had he just noticed? “...Dunno. It just… slipped out once, and she didn’t seem to mind, so…”

Aki kept blinking at him. “...There’s a lot I missed out on back in September, wasn’t there?”

“How am I supposed to know? If there was a thing between us back then- and I’m not saying there was- she hasn’t exactly been trying to follow up on it.” His eyes slipped to the gloves he was wearing. “...Most of the time.”

“What do you mean ‘most of the time?’” Why, just why was Aki suddenly being so observant? It wasn’t that his brother was stupid or anything- well, okay, it might have been a bit of that- but all the observational skills in the world couldn’t change the fact that he didn’t really get people.

“I-it doesn’t matter.” Why was he getting so worked up about this? “Really, I… I wouldn't be able to do anything about it, anyway.”

“What do you mean? You just have to tell her whether you like her or not. It can’t be that hard.”

Shinjiro gave his brother a look. “I don’t need to remember the last three years to know that you have exactly zero room to talk right now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Name one person that you can actually get. Go on. I’ll wait.”

“...I have you.”

“Well, yeah…” He sighed. “Guess that’s fair. I did set the bar pretty damn low on that one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like it when these three all get along.


	9. In Which Chidori Is Somehow The Most Functional Person In The Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, this is because Shinjiro and Kotone are both heavily in denial, Akihiko's social skills are nonexistant, and Junpei is a nonfactor, but that doesn't change how jarring it looks from the outside.

It took longer for Kotone to come back, long enough that Shinjiro started to worry about her, even more than he had before.

When she did return, his worry didn’t abate at all. Her fire was still there, smoldering at the edges of her gaze, but it was as if, after whatever had smothered it before, no one had bothered giving it the fuel to properly reignite.

“Hey.” She forced a smile- and it was definitely forced, he’d seen her smile for real, and it was so much brighter than this- and collapsed in a chair right next to his bed. “Sorry I… haven’t been around.”

“It’s fine.” He was just… glad she’d shown up again. “Are you feeling all right, though? You seem kind of…” It was hard to describe, just how upset she appeared.

“Physically? I’m fine.” She didn’t say anything about her mental state.

...Actually, thinking about it, Shinjiro wasn’t even sure he trusted her about her physical state. “You sure about that?” He asked, looking at her more closely. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you actually collapse before.”

She shook her head. “I promise, it’s just stress. And it’s not as bad as it looks. It’s… definitely not bad enough to justify not being here.”

It was very hard to believe that. It wasn’t like putting up with him was any sort of obligation. “Look, I’m not sure there’s much point in you showing up if you’re just gonna be dead on your feet the whole time. You need to take better care of yourself.”

Kotone glanced to the side. “I… really don’t think it’s that bad. It’s… I’ve had worse.”

This was not reassuring. “That doesn’t mean there’s not a problem. Is there… something I can help with, at least?”

“...Are you okay with listening to me vent about things you’ll probably never believe or understand?” From her tone, Shinjiro could tell that she was already expecting the answer to be no. Which… well, he could understand why she’d think that. It wasn’t something he’d normally put up with from most people.

But this was also, in a sense, a chance to get to know her a bit better. Something he’d wanted since… well, since he’d first woken up, really. “That… it’s fine. Really, just… go ahead.”

Whatever her thoughts might have been beforehand, Kotone was quick to start talking again. “I- all right. So. Imagine a world where things are a lot like this one, only most things are ever so slightly worse, even if they sound good on the surface. Like if… say… there was a bit more time in the day. That sounds nice, right? Except, for that extra time, at best you have to deal with a massive blackout. Or… a place where magic exists, but most of the time using it requires you to slowly traumatize yourself, and you don’t even have the option to stop.”

“...Are you describing a TV show?” It wasn’t like he had any idea what was on TV.

“...Honestly, that would make a pretty good plot for one,” She admitted. “But it’s… Imagine if the biggest problem you ever had to deal with… just went away. Like it never existed. And you can’t even share it with anyone, because as far as they know, those problems… didn’t happen.”

That sounded like… sort of the opposite of Shinjiro’s current situation. “I dunno if I’m really qualified for that…”

Familiar as it was, he didn’t think he’d heard her laugh since before the coma. Even here, it vanished as quickly as it had arrived. “I- I guess not. But… still. I… I should be happy. I’ve gotten everything I thought I wanted. But it’s just…”

Her eyes were shining with tears, now. This was a problem. Shinjiro had never known how to deal with tears. How was he supposed to fix this? “...Koto?”

“S-sorry, I- I know you don’t like it when- when I get like this.” Kotone started wiping at her own face, trying to push the tears away. “I just-”

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t, not really, not when she was hurting in a way that he couldn’t see how to fix, but saying that was just going to make things worse, and he really, really didn’t want to make things worse. “I-I mean, it’s not like I want you to feel this way or anything, I…” Why had he opened his mouth?

“...It’s okay. I-I think I know what you mean.” All right. So he could have screwed up worse than this. That wasn’t entirely reassuring, but it was something at least. “Even if it’s… different, from what you’ve told me before.”

Well, it wasn’t like he remembered telling her that, now, was it?

“Yeah, well…” Was there any good way to say this? “It’s just… it’s nice to know what you’re feeling.” It was the sort of thing he wondered, every time she visited him. If only this hadn’t been the answer.

“...I’m not sure you want to know everything I’m feeling.” Shinjiro wondered how much of that involved the fact that she was apparently in love with him.

He wondered why he couldn’t bring himself to just ask, and get this whole mess over with.

* * *

  
  


Thinking about it there were a lot of ways that Shinjiro could have handled the situation. He could have asked her outright, if he’d had a bit more courage, was less hesitant about potentially breaking her heart. He could have just done nothing, and let the whole thing hopefully blow over in a month or so when she finally got over him, aside from the fact that whatever feelings she’d had had lasted for nearly five months of no progress whatsoever. He could even have asked Aki for help, as terrible of an idea as it was when he was pretty sure his brother had no idea what social skills even were. There were options.

Options that didn’t involve leaving his bed, which, while not exactly warm, at least had the benefit of blankets, for the sake of visiting another inpatient who he honestly hadn’t expected still to be hospitalized.

And yet, Yoshino Chidori was sitting there, a brand-new sketchbook opened which she was already starting to scribble in. She glanced up at him, eyes flashing in a way that said that, if he got in the way of her drawing, nobody would ever find his body. “...Oh. It’s you.” Not even a thank you for helping her with what he strongly suspected were relationship problems.

“Yoshino.” Now was probably not a good time to ask what she was still doing there when she seemed perfectly healthy. “I was wondering something.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to answer most of the questions you might have,” She stated before he could get started. “I have very little memory of a time before this hospital.”

So a more extreme version of his own amnesia. Honestly, this brought up far too many questions, and odds were neither of them would have any answers. “I’m not really asking about the past… I mean, not all that far back, really, but… you know Koto?”

“You mean Shiomi-san?” She continued without waiting for him to nod. “I wouldn’t exactly call her a friend, but she comes along with Junpei when he visits sometimes. Why do you ask?”

...He supposed it was a bit too much to hope that that question just never came up. “It’s… well…” Could he say that she was acting weird when he didn’t have much reference for how she usually was? “I just… can’t seem to figure her out.” Or, he could, but it was information he had no clue what to do with.

“Oh?” Yoshino didn’t seem particularly interested, continuing to doodle. Shinjiro continued to get the impression that it was a bad idea to try and stop her if he wanted to keep all of his limbs.

“I’m not really sure why she comes around, really…” Aside from the thing he was trying not to acknowledge for the sake of his own peace of mind. “I just… woke up one day, and she was there. And she’s been coming to see me ever since.”

“...That sounds a bit like Junpei,” She noted. “I suppose it makes sense. They’re friends, after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“The first time Junpei came to see me… he was really happy. He wouldn’t say why, but it was… very clear, from the look on his face. Seeing it… it was hard for me not to be happy, too.” Yoshino had a fond smile on her face as she recounted those memories.

Honestly, when she said it like that, it almost sounded like something out of a romance novel. This was not reassuring. “You make it sound like you’re in love with him.”

“I might be. It’s hard to tell, when I don’t remember feeling anything like this before.” She looked up at him. “What about you and Shiomi-san?”

Why did she have to turn the conversation around? This was the one thing that Shinjiro hadn’t been looking forward to talking about. “What do you mean?”

“What do you think of her?”

About Kotone? There were a lot of things he thought about her. Things like how absurd it was that she could wear short sleeves in winter without any problem, and that it probably wasn’t healthy for her to keep up the insane schedule that everyone claimed she did. How much he’d hate it if her insane schedule actually did get her sick somehow. That whatever was weighing her down, he wanted to hear more about it, if only so he’d know if he could help or not, because it genuinely hurt him to see her sad.

“She’s… something,” He said, not sure how to put it into words. Just saying that she was special seemed unbearably sappy. “I dunno if she should be bothering with me, but I also… really don’t want her to stop.” Honestly, even this seemed a bit too sappy.

“Does Shiomi-san realize this?” Yoshino sounded vaguely amused. He’d definitely said too much.

It would probably be in his best interests not to give her an answer. And to never breathe a word of this whole thing to anybody. And wonder just how another person in a similar situation to him could ever exist.

Hopefully, Kotone would be feeling better the next time he saw her, and he’d never have to think about this conversation ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I genuinely expected things to finish a lot sooner, but I forgot that none of these kids can communicate in the slightest. Kotone tries, sometimes she sort of succeeds, but for the most part...


	10. In Which Things Sort of Improve Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There no longer appears to be anybody on the verge of a mental breakdown. This is, sadly, better than things were before.

Aki would be no help with this. Aki would be less than no help with this. If Shinjiro talked to Aki about this, he was certain that, whatever his brother did, it would just make things worse.

Aki, unfortunately, was probably not going to let him avoid the topic.

“Hey… Kotone’s still been visiting you, right?” He asked, concern obvious in his voice.

Shinjiro nodded. “She… makes sure to come by.” To say the least. Even if he was pretty sure she shouldn’t have been focusing so much of her time and attention on him.

“Do you… know if she’s been doing okay? Hardly anyone’s seen her this week…”

“Physically, she says she’s fine.” He still had a few doubts about it- there was a non-zero chance her body was actually generating a lot more heat than should have been possible, but that might just have been because his own thermoregulation seemed to be a lost cause- but she at least hadn’t seemed to be sick or anything. “Otherwise… I don’t know.”

Aki sighed. “...You know, the happiest I saw her this month was when I told her you’d woken up. It just… never got any better than that.”

“If I knew how to fix it, I would.” It wasn’t like he didn’t have any ideas. It was just that Shinjiro had so much to work through already that adding feelings to the mix just made it all even more complicated to navigate. “It’s… she shouldn’t be like that.” The world would have been better off, if there had been nothing to take away her smile.

He ignored the nagging feeling in the back of his head that he’d been one of the things to do so.

The way Aki looked at him, it was like he was seeing him for the first time. “You… really care about her, don’t you?”

Why was he sounding so surprised? It wasn’t like Shinjiro couldn’t have a life outside of their messed-up little family of two. “Well, she’s… easy to care about.” How many other people were there, who had hearts as warm as their smiles? It couldn’t be that many.

“...Can’t really argue with that. She warms up to everyone so quickly… it’s sort of scary.”

“What, is your hidden weakness people who actually know how to talk to others?” Or maybe it was people who were easy to talk to.

“More people who can make you spill all your secrets just by sitting and waiting…” That… didn’t really sound like Kotone. Admittedly, Shinjiro was aware that his experience with her was somewhat atypical, but it wasn’t like he felt any major pressure to talk with her about certain things, either, aside from to satisfy his own burning curiosity.

Maybe Aki just wasn’t used to having people to share things with that he hadn’t known for basically his entire life. That was a very real possibility. Even if it was one he would have liked to be able to disprove, because it was sort of sad to think about.

Or… maybe it was just that Kotone was so easy to talk to, that even the incredibly socially inept were completely okay with it. “I just don’t think there’s anything about her to be scared of, except-”

He forced himself to stop, but it was already too late. “Except what?”

He didn’t really have a good answer for that. What reason did he have to be afraid of someone being willing to listen to everything he had to say? The fact that there was someone who could chase away the cold that sank into his bones just by looking at him?

Why did he find the thought of being loved, of possibly even feeling the same way himself, so utterly terrifying? “It’s- I’m not sure I’m worth her time.” Had he said this before? He had to have, right? “She says she wants me around, but… I mean, it’s not that I don’t like spending time with her, but… shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Aki looked far too pleased with himself for someone who, if placed in this exact situation, would probably be even worse off than he was.

“You were thinking it.”

He didn’t even try to deny it. Maybe because they knew each other all too well.

This conversation was, in fact, exactly as unhelpful as he’d imagined it to be.

* * *

  
  


When Kotone returned, she seemed to actually be feeling a lot better. “I let Aigis and Yukari talk me into having a girls’ day,” She explained. “Or… Yukari suggested it, and Aigis invited herself along… Something along those lines.”

Given that Shinjiro had met Aigis, he wasn’t entirely surprised that she would push her way into Kotone’s social situations. “I take it you had fun?”

She nodded. “It was… sort of awkward, since Yukari couldn’t remember the last time she and Aigis had a conversation, but… it was nice. Almost like-” She forced herself to stop.

“...Koto?”

“It was like… when everyone in the dorm would spend time together. Even if it’s not something that the others seem to remember, I… really liked those days. Sure, most of us were never any good at actually talking to each other, and it caused a lot more problems than we really needed… but I like to think that all of us were happy, back then, as much as it was possible to be. I miss it.”

And that made sense. It had always been reasonably clear that Kotone was the type of person who thrived when surrounded by other people. Of course she’d like it if everyone got along.

“That… does sound sort of nice,” Shinjiro admitted. “...Can’t imagine knowing that many people, though. Not well, anyway.” It just seemed… really complicated.

“It definitely takes some getting used to,” She agreed. “I… had problems believing it at first, and then right when I’d gotten used to it… well, I guess it didn’t immediately go away, but… things happened.”

One of those things, Shinjiro suspected, was the incident that had put him in the hospital. “What sort of things?” Did he even want to know?

“Injuries, cult activity, and at least one example of murder on the school roof that was covered up just as quickly. It’s been… really crazy. I can’t even blame them for acting like it never happened, it was just so… I wouldn’t have believed it, if I hadn’t been there.”

Shinjiro almost didn’t believe it himself, except that Kotone’s words felt oddly right, for some reason, even if it was about stuff that he hadn’t been there for.

Besides, what reason could she possibly have to lie to him? “Sounds like there’s a lot I missed out on.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to be there. You always said you wanted to stay away from that sort of thing, but… Most of the time, there wasn’t much of a choice. I’m… glad it’s gone, even if it means I don’t always know what to do next.”

“...What do you do, when you don’t know?” He knew she couldn’t have been at lost as he was, but it was still something worth asking, if only so he could learn that much more about her.

“Normally? I come right here.” Kotone blinked, and then quickly looked away, as though realizing what she’d just said. “That… sounded better in my head.”

“...It’s fine. You’re- I like it. Having you around.” Having conversations like this… well, he’d say they’d been easier before feelings came into the equation, except he couldn’t even be sure when that had happened. Maybe they’d always been there and he’d just never noticed. “It’s sort of weird when you don’t visit, really…” To the point where he didn’t like imagining a world where she hadn’t chosen to be there. It just wasn’t something he wanted.

“What, do you miss me?” It was impossible to tell whether or not she was joking. It was even harder to decide whether or not it was safe to answer honestly.

“I-I mean…” He couldn’t say anything. As much as he wanted to be able to just talk about things, and get them figured out… he just didn’t have the words.

Kotone moved her chair just a bit closer, and the air, in response, seemed to grow just a bit warmer. “...It’s all right. You don’t have to say anything. It’s… not like it’s going to matter that much, once you get out of here, right? You can come see me whenever you want, then.”

Shinjiro wondered if honestly answering her would have changed anything, or if she’d just say the same thing with that much more of a smile. “You sure you’re willing to put up with that?” If she really was inviting him into her life… he wasn’t sure he’d be able to force himself to leave.

“Getting to see you without having to make the trip here? It’s- well, I’d say it’s like a dream come true, except my dreams are usually a lot more surreal than that and trying to make any sense of them’s like expecting you and Akihiko-senpai not to find some sort of silly thing to compete over.” She knew them well enough to be able to use phrases like that, and yet she was still willing to put up with them. Maybe there was hope for them after all.

If he ever let himself get around to processing her words. That was… less likely. “Well… just a few more days. Right in time for graduation, little as it matters to me.”

“Yeah, but… at least you can be there for Akihiko-senpai,” Kotone pointed out. “Though… I might not be there with you.”

“Why not?” Wasn’t this sort of thing a pretty big deal?

“I… hopefully, I’ll be able to meet with… well, with a certain group of people, up on the roof of the school. But they might not turn up, and… well. I’ll be waiting for them either way.”

“...Even though you don’t know they’ll be there?”

“Well, I mean… I have to trust them, don’t I? They’re… some of the only people in the world who are like me. And it’ll be nice to be able to talk to them about that sort of thing again. I mean, there’s other people I can talk to, but they’re not… it’s complicated. But… No matter what, I’m going to wait for them. Just in case.”

There was something about her words that Shinjiro found oddly familiar, for some reason. Like he’d heard it before, once, in a dream he’d half-forgotten. From a version of her that had seemed too good to be true.

Like always, he couldn’t place where any of it had come from. But it still made sense, sliding into his mind as if it had always been there. Maybe it had, and he just hadn’t noticed until that moment. He wouldn't claim to really understand his own mind.

But if he slept on it, and took his time thinking about it… maybe this would be something that he could fully comprehend, given enough time. It just had that sort of feeling to it. “I… hope they can be there for you.”

Kotone nodded along, her eyes unfocused. “Whether everyone shows up or not… We’ll probably talk afterwards. It’s just… there’s a lot of stuff that’d be a lot easier to say, as long as it wasn’t here.”

Shinjiro couldn’t tell if those words were meant to be reassuring, or some kind of warning. Maybe, they were both, in that odd, disjointed way that everything he knew of the world seemed to fit together.

He supposed he’d figure it out when the day arrived. “That’d be nice.” Maybe he’d even be able to put together the words he hadn’t been able to figure out how to say. Or he’d be able to get the point across in a way that didn’t need him to actually say anything. Those were both good options.

But, for now, things seemed to be okay, and while it was sort of sad that this was an improvement, he was willing to take it.

Maybe, once he could see the rest of the world, things would finally make sense again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The assertion that Kotone is the member of SEES who is most able to communicate actually isn't saying all that much, when you think about it. It's just that she, you know, actually puts in the effort most of the time.


	11. In Which The Author Breathes A Sigh of Relief At No Longer Having A Completely-Amnesiac Focus Character

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, Graduation Day, part one. Or whatever. Something like that.

Whoever it was who said that time healed all wounds… might actually have sort of been on to something.

Shinjiro managed to check himself out of the hospital early in the morning on the fifth of March, mostly waiting as long as he did because the doctors were still sort of wondering how he was even alive, and he couldn’t really give them any sort of answer.

Really, he was kind of wondering about that himself. It wasn’t like any of the choices he’d made leading up to his hospital stay had been conducive to having a long life.

Not that any of those choices were entirely clear to him- everything was still really fuzzy- but from when he’d first gotten up that morning, he’d had a certain understanding of the fact that he hadn’t been making the healthiest decisions.

He also knew that, the second he admitted to knowing about them, he would be expected to defend those decisions, or else admit that he was wrong about something, and Aki was right. He couldn’t decide whether it was worth admitting defeat here or not- arguably, he probably shouldn’t have started moving before he’d taken the time to process the things that were starting to clear up, but he’d never claimed that realizing he’d made poor life choices meant his next ones were going to be any better.

Still, that was a problem to be dealt with later. At the moment, Shinjiro had a few more immediate priorities to worry about.

There was, of course, sorting through all of the knowledge and memories that had been slowly filtering back into his mind since the moment he woke up, but given how, every minute or so, he’d blink and suddenly know something more, or remember a new thing, everything that wasn’t immediately relevant could probably be put off until the holes in his memory were actually smaller than the things that were there, or at least until they stopped filling themselves in. Given the rate that things were currently progressing, that couldn’t take much longer than a day or so.

EIther way, Shinjiro had enough of a grasp on what was happening that he wouldn’t have to muddle through any of this newfound information too much so long as nothing to shocking was revealed, and waking up with memories of having been shot in the chest was probably enough to exhaust his capacity for shock for the rest of the day, so it was probably fine.

Linked to that was the importance of figuring out what, between October and February, had been dreams and what he’d actually been there for, but at least that he could probably get independent confirmation, so it’d probably work out on its own.

Another, somewhat more urgent priority was to figure out if anyone else was going through… well, not exactly the same thing, he was sure none of the others had to deal with so much blank space where the events of the past years had been, but if they were remembering the things he did. He didn’t think he’d mind overly much if they didn’t, if it meant that he’d be able to pass everything off as just a bad dream, but… well… he probably wouldn’t be able to do that.

After all, Kotone almost certainly remembered. It was hard to believe she wouldn’t, with the many things she did that seemed mildly unusual from the outside, but that were easily explained away by magic. Giving herself immunity to the cold, warming up whatever room she was in… she’d improved, over the past several months, from just being able to manipulate her own body temperature, but it was still the exact use of her powers that she’d always loved most. He wasn’t sure she’d even bothered trying to learn anything else.

And that just brought things to the most important point. He needed to find Kotone.

She’d be waiting to see if anyone would show up who was like her, after all. And even if Castor had been silent since October, even if he didn’t think he’d ever be able to bring himself to use an Evoker again… well. She’d also said that she wanted to see him.

And he would have been lying if he said he didn’t want to see her just as badly.

* * *

  
  


When Shinjiro got to the roof of the school, Kotone was already there, along with Aigis and a boy with dark blue hair who was not the slightest bit familiar to him. Kotone was the first to notice his presence, turning around so quickly he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d found a Persona like Fuuka’s over the past several months.

“Shinji? Should you be up here right now?” She sounded more concerned for him than anything, which… actually mostly fit into the whole past month. Fitting the exact order of things together was more difficult than it really needed to be.

“From a medical standpoint? Probably not.” Taking the stairs was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time, but that he began to regret once he was halfway to his destination. “But you did imply we were having a team meeting, so unless you booted me off while I was unconscious…”

As quickly as if she’d somehow teleported- which, honestly, wasn’t out of the picture considering everything else she could do- Kotone had her arms wrapped around Shinjiro, who dimly noted in the back of his mind that, at that speed, they really shouldn’t have still been standing.

“Shinji, you just got out of the hospital. I think I could have forgiven you not showing up.” Yes, but this was better. “Come on, let’s go sit down before you fall over.”

“I’m not going to-” She just looked at him, the fire in her gaze flaring up brighter than ever after weeks of burning at a low simmer. Or maybe it was just that this was his first time seeing her under direct sunlight while fully conscious, but he wasn’t going to think about that part. “...Fine…”

As soon as he admitted defeat, her face lit up as brightly as if she were holding a pall of Bless magic. Still, she seemed to be taking more effort than usual to contain her energy, as she led him over to one of the benches.

“I hadn’t expected you to be one of the first ones up,” The boy with blue hair spoke up, in a voice that wasn’t familiar at all, and that also carried no traces of recognizable emotion. “...Nice to see you in one piece.”

Physically, those words weren’t exactly wrong. As much as most people were confused by his ability to quickly recover from a given injury, there was no denying that it had definitely helped him get back on his feet. Mentally… while he’d never consider Castor being quiet to be a bad thing, that was just one piece of many that had yet to fully reassert themselves.

As it was, it was probably a good idea not to mention that part if he didn’t want any undue concern. “More or less.” The fact that everything about this boy was on the ‘less’ end of the spectrum was something that was probably going to come up eventually, but could hopefully be put off until he had some sort of idea what to do next.

“I said that he was getting better…” Kotone mumbled, shooting a mutinous glance in the boy’s direction, before turning back to Shinjiro and pressing close to him. “Ignore him. I’m not sure he’s ever helped someone without being part of the reason they have problems to begin with.”

“Already doing it.” The boy didn’t matter. Not really. What was important was the girl cuddled up to him while emitting more heat than would be healthy from almost anyone else. “You sure you should be using your powers like this?”

“What else would I use them for? The Shadows are gone,” She pointed out, as if there had never been anything else stopping her from making full uses of her many kinds of magic.

...Actually, given that this was Kotone, maybe that wasn’t much of a surprise, after all. It wasn’t like this was the first time she’d used her fire affinity to keep him warm.

It was just that… she had access to so many powers, and every time he’d seen her use them outside of Tartarus, it had always been for him. And he didn’t deserve that.

But then, the things that Shinjiro thought he deserved, and the things he ended up getting, had never actually had any connection to each other unless he brought it on himself. Which he couldn’t do anymore, or else he’d hurt Kotone, and he didn’t think he could have brought himself to do that again even if Aigis hadn’t shown up to threaten him away from it.

“I dunno.” He pulled her closer. “Probably something crazy.” She had a history.

“Then isn’t it a good thing I’ve got something better to do? I- I know I’ve said this before, but… I really missed you.”

“I know.” It was sort of hard to miss. “I… well…” The presence of Aigis and the boy with blue hair was a heavy weight on his mind, making it harder to say what he really wanted to. “...Sorry I took so long.” He wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for the amnesia or the coma, or even his initial insistence that he didn’t deserve to be cared about. But there was probably something in there worth apologizing for. If only because of how much happier she could have been.

“It’s fine. You managed to get here eventually.” A blue-gray gaze burned at them. “...Don’t you dare complain, Minato-kun. You sank all of your relationships.”

The boy with blue hair blinked, and then pointedly turned away from the two of them. “...Aigis, do you think the others are going to get here soon?”

“As Shinjiro-san seems to be recovering very quickly from his more severe case of amnesia, that would not be out of the question. Perhaps they will be glad enough to see him again that the remembered existences of Isis and Artemisia will not cause you more problems than you have already.”

“...At least I brought along the right Personas for this…”

Shinjiro decided that he didn’t want to know any more than he did already. It was probably safer that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Minato and Aigis seem like they're awkwardly just there, that's because they are. Neither of them entirely recognize it as a potentially-awkward situation, but they may still have some awareness of that fact.
> 
> I now have the proper freedom to write fluff. This is the important part.


	12. In Which Kotone and Minato Don't Get Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But then, Kotone and Minato apparently never get along, so this probably isn't anything new.

A few minutes later, the rest of SEES spilled out of the door at speeds previously reached only with Sukukaja. Given how there were multiple ways to gain the effects of Sukukaja, Shinjiro wasn’t yet willing to rule out the possibility that they had, even like it seemed a bit far to go for the sake of climbing some stairs.

But then, he was the idiot who’d run straight up a flight of stairs right after getting out of the hospital, so maybe he wasn’t qualified to have an opinion about this sort of thing.

It was sort of hilarious how quickly they all appeared, one after another, but the fact remained that they were there, and that they could actually see him, and maybe this wasn’t how he wanted his first post-hospital interaction with everyone to go.

Kotone, meanwhile, didn’t seem to be too bothered with the interruption. “Hey, everyone. Glad you could make it!” She also didn’t seem to care about the fact that everyone could see her snuggled up to him, but then, he’d never expected her to. Kotone just wasn’t someone who cared a lot about that sort of thing.

“Hey, Koto-tan. We keep you waiting long?”

“...Where do you want me to start counting from?” This was probably a joke. She sounded too happy to be doing anything mean-spirited. “When I got here, this morning, February...”

“I’m pretty sure she was planning this for at least a couple months, actually,” Shinjiro spoke up. It seemed real enough to him, at least. “You know, before anyone could be sure this would even have to happen.” What he wouldn’t give for some of her optimism.

There were more than a few odd looks sent his way at this- which was fair enough, Aki and Kotone were the only people who ever really seemed to notice his presence- but no one dared to give them a voice.

If anything, he got agreement. “I think- it might have been even earlier than that.” Ken’s voice was quiet, but it still rang in his ears, refusing to leave, as much because of the one saying it as the actual contents of the sentence. “I mean… she’s always liked it when we were all together, you know?”

Left unsaid was the fact that SEES hadn’t really all been gathered together since October.

Then again, maybe it didn't need to be. They’d all been there, after all. It had been the last time, for a very long time, that Shinjiro was fully anywhere at all.

This was also the most directly that his presence had been acknowledged so far, and even that was enough to make him uncomfortable. But maybe that was just due to the guilt that sank sharp claws into his stomach every time he so much as looked at Ken, and it would have been easier from someone else. When he saw the kid, it was almost enough to make him wonder why he’d ever wanted to wake up, except that, with Aki and Kotone there, it was impossible to forget just how much he’d hated seeing them so unhappy. And they’d been unhappy, every time they heard his voice without being able to see his face.

He still didn’t know what he’d done to deserve having people like them.

“I’m… surprised you noticed that,” The boy with blue hair- Minato, his name was Minato, that was what they kept calling him- spoke up. “I… didn’t think we’d all been together often enough for that.”

“Well, she might have been okay if you hadn’t shown up, actually.” Yukari’s words were as biting as the winds she called. “...I wouldn’t have really minded, either, honestly.”

“D-do we really need to have a repeat of last month?” Fuuka asked. “I… thought you’d already settled this.”

“I suppose that the matter has been properly dealt with,” Mitsuru spoke, and Minato heaved a sigh of obvious relief, despite her icy tone and the fact that Yukari didn’t seem entirely satisfied. “For now, at least. With luck, we will not have to revisit it. Besides. This was meant to be a happy occasion.” She turned away from the boy with blue hair, and the ice she held in her gaze melted, just a little. “Shinjiro. It’s… good to see you well.”

It was nice to see that she hadn’t gotten any better at holding a casual conversation. Some things never changed. “Hey, Mitsuru. How’ve you been?”

She shrugged. “I suppose I can’t complain. Still, it’s nice to not feel constantly disoriented anymore.” That made two of them. He supposed it made sense, after over half her life had been spent in the Dark Hour, that she would have been a bit out of sorts.

Fuuka paused. “...So it wasn’t just me, then. I could tell something wasn’t right, if I was thinking about it, but I didn’t really think about it that much.”

“I guess most of you wouldn’t have much reason to,” Kotone quietly stated. “If everything seemed normal… why look too closely at it? As long as there was something there…”

“Trust me, not having stuff to fill in the gaps didn’t make it any easier.” She should have known this, she was there. It just made him feel worse about not knowing everyone he should have. “Might have made things come back faster once it started, but with all that info at once, I’m still not sure that’s a good thing.” He wasn’t certain he was the worst off- Mitsuru might have lost more cumulatively- but this definitely wasn’t the best way things could have gone. “I still don’t even have everything.”

“You don’t?” Kotone asked. She curled even closer to him. He hadn’t fully realized that was possible. “What do you remember, then?”

“Important stuff, mostly. You, Aki, Ken…” When his name was said, the kid winced and ducked behind Junpei. “Nothing about him, really.” He waved a hand at Minato.

Minato shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. You’re... not missing much.” Those words contained just as much of a wince as his face did. Shinjiro decided not to ask.

Besides. This whole meeting was essentially to celebrate how the world hadn’t ended. Compared to that, any lingering patches in his memory weren’t important in the slightest.

* * *

  
  


Shinjiro was fully aware that his actions that day were not the recommended actions to take immediately after a long-term hospitalization. He just hadn’t felt like listening to the myriad of medical professionals who’d spent a full month that he was aware of poking at him over the feeling in his gut that told him that running up multiple flights of stairs was a good idea.

Was he regretting that now? Maybe a little bit. Whether it was the length of the day, the excitement of the earlier gathering, or even just the addition of exercise back into his routine, he was completely exhausted.

“Let’s not have you climb another set of stairs,” Kotone stated, and it was pretty difficult to argue with her. “Koro-chan can stay here in case you have any trouble, right, Koro-chan?”

“Arf!” It was hard not to take that as some sort of agreement.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve still got stuff upstairs…” Sure, someone could have moved it eventually, but the point still stood.”

“I don't think you’ve got anything too important in there, actually…” Aki mused.

“...Did you go through my stuff?”

“Soma has an expiration date, I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

“He’d just learned how to shock things even harder and didn’t want to stop having fun with it,” Kotone translated. “...But also, yeah, Soma’s kinda hard to come by, and I don’t want to know what’d happen if it expired.”

“I dunno why you even gave me Soma. I could barely use any sort of magic.”

“That’s why. I could trust you to hold onto it instead of using it to show off.”

Minato rolled his eyes. “And yet you still let Ken take the Revival Beads…”

“I paid for those beads with my own money, I get to decide who can use them.” Behind them, Ken hurried upstairs as if there was a small army of Maya Shadows chasing after him. Shinjiro decided not to think about that too hard. “You need to accept that maybe people have different priorities.”

“Oh, no, I figured that out after all that time you spent pining. Your love life takes a backseat to saving the world, Kotone-chan.”

“Says the person who dated half of the girls he knows at the same time.”

“It helped with saving the world!”

“Really? That’s odd. I managed to help out the guys on the team just fine without having to date all of them, and I haven’t ruined my chances for potential future relationships.”

“All right, that’s enough, you two,” Aki groaned, as if he’d already heard this entire argument before. “Do we really have to start this up again…?”

“I’m amazed that you think it ever died down.”

Shinjiro thought that maybe Minato’d had a point, earlier that day. Despite not remembering a thing about him… he really wasn’t missing anything that he wanted to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to say that I'll never write this many characters like this again... but this is a series that's probably going to have at least one installment in the Persona Qs, so it's kind of a lost cause.
> 
> ...I can't even promise to stop letting Kotone and Minato interact. I'll try my hardest, though. They really shouldn't be allowed into the same scene like this. It kind of overshadows literally everything else.


	13. In Which Adjusting Is Still Not Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But then, it never really is. At least they've all got each other to work through it with.
> 
> ...Or, they would, if they'd just learn how to communicate.

Back before he recovered from his amnesia, Shinjiro had been absolutely certain that he would never miss it. That there was absolutely nothing that could have been worth the loss of such a long period of time, and especially not one that was so recent.

Now that he’d actually gotten said memories back, he had to admit that, while he’d never choose to forget again, there were upsides to not actually remembering anything. There were a lot less nightmares that way.

“It’s okay, Koro-chan.” He wasn’t sure if the dog believed him or not, but if everyone else was still asleep, he probably didn’t have to be entirely convincing. “I’ll be fine.”

Koromaru whined and tilted his head to the side. Shinjiro didn’t need Aigis around to tell him that this meant he probably wanted him to try and talk about it. As if he’d ever been any good at talking about his problems. If he was…

...Well, he’d say that he wouldn’t have been in that situation, but in all honesty, the same things probably would have happened without that much change.

Shinjiro reached over and scratched Koromaru behind the ears. It sort of made him feel better, more anchored in reality. “You know, I… hadn’t realized how much I would miss everyone, if something happened to me.” He’d had some idea, a few people who he knew he never wanted to let go of, but it had just seemed so unimportant, compared to how much he hated himself.

That might have been why he didn’t let go of them, actually, and kept finding his way back to them no matter how much his mind had wanted him to suffer. All he was doing was reminding himself of the things he could have had, if things had gone just a bit different.

And now it was different, and he could have them again, and he still didn’t know what he wanted to do with any of it. “I guess that makes sense, though. I didn’t even let myself think that they’d miss me.” He’d hurt them so much, and they’d still waited for him to wake up.

He really, really didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this.

Koromaru seemed to take this as an invitation for more snuggles.

Shinjiro would have been lying if he said it hadn’t helped.

* * *

  
  


For the rest of the night, sleep didn’t come that much easier, but Shinjiro wasn’t completely exhausted in the morning, and he thought that he could take that as a success.

It was also early enough that probably no one else was awake, and he was still uncoordinated enough that, if he tried to make breakfast on his own, he’d probably burn himself, but those were both problems that would probably be solved with time.

For the second part, he wasn’t entirely sure about that, but it was what he’d been told, so he’d just go along with it and hope that the doctors had been right.

Cooking was one of the only useful skills he had, after all. If that was gone, he’d only be able to take care of animals and fight things, and the second one was something he was honestly tired of.

He probably wouldn’t even be able to do that as well as he could before. Castor still hadn’t done anything to so much as suggest his continued presence.

He couldn’t say that he missed him. But it was sort of strange, for his other self to be so quiet.

Despite the early hour, though, it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before somebody came downstairs. Kotone entered the room with all of the fire she’d been more recently lacking, as though it had never died down to just the smoldering embers that hid themselves behind her gaze. “Good morning!”

“Hey.” He waved to her, but didn’t stand up. He didn’t want to displace Koromaru. “Thought you’d want to sleep in today.” Wasn’t that how most people celebrated the end of the school year?

She shook her head. “That’s more Minato-kun’s thing, really. He’d fall asleep in Tartarus if we didn’t have the Reaper to worry about…” As Shinjiro still had no real memories of him, he’d have to take her word for it. “Did you sleep well?”

There was honestly no good way for him to answer that question. Really, the whole thing was pretty relative, anyway, and he had plenty of examples of how things could have been worse. “It was… all right, I guess.” By now, he was pretty sure that the best outcome of sleeping was to not dream at all, but something told him that it wasn’t a good idea to mention that.

“...You guess?” Honestly, it was a lot easier to keep his problems quiet from people when they didn’t have incredible powers of observation tuned mainly to people’s personal problems. Kotone leaned against the back of the couch, close to him, but not so much to be overbearing.

He fiddled with the edges of his blanket. “It might be a while before I have a good frame of reference for what counts as a good night’s sleep.” Among other things, he’d have to get used to getting an hour less of it than he used to.

She nodded along. “Yeah, it’s… kind of strange, isn’t it? I keep expecting to wake up in the Dark Hour, and then it doesn’t happen. Hopefully it doesn’t take another ten years to get used to it…”

That was a very good thing to hope for. Shinjiro had problems imagining himself being alive in ten years, let alone used to a completely normal life. He genuinely hadn’t expected to make it this far, or even wanted to, most of the time.

Still. That was just like Kotone. Always looking ahead to a future that the rest of them just couldn’t truly believe existed. “Already making plans?”

“Not… not exactly. Just… there’s a good chance we’ll still be here in another ten years, and that’s… kind of strange to think about. Especially since, supposedly, the world was supposed to have ended a month ago.”

That was still sort of surreal to think about. But then, these days, it was almost easier to count the things that weren’t. He’d just have to take everyone’s word for it.

“Thought you’d at least be used to it by now.” She’d had a whole month’s head start, after all. If Kotone, probably the most adaptable person Shinjiro knew, was having problems adjusting… well. That didn’t exactly bode well for the rest of them.

She shook her head. “You’d think so, but apparently spending ten years dealing with something is enough time to almost get attached to it.”

“...So that’s why I can’t seem to get rid of Aki.”

That actually got a laugh out of her. Good. She needed to laugh more. “I think it was too late for that a long time ago. It’s- even when you’re trying, it’s not hard to care about you.” And if that didn’t sum up the past half year just about perfectly, he didn’t know what did.

“Can I get a less biased opinion?”

“No, see, we all agreed on this. Even Aigis did, and you’ve barely even talked to each other.” This was probably not the time to bring up cryptic hospital visits. Maybe there wouldn’t ever be a time for that. Or maybe it wasn’t even anything new to Kotone, because Aigis had always been a bit creepy like that.

Actually, thinking back to it, she’d been a lot worse about it when he’d met her, hadn’t she? Always insisting on staying by Kotone’s side… Shinjiro decided to stop thinking about that before it could get too far.

Mostly. “Okay, but did she say that before or after you started talking?”

“I’m not sure that it matters.” She leaned a bit closer. “Anyway, did you have anything you wanted for breakfast? I’ve been helping Fuuka-chan practice, and I think we’ve both gotten really good at it.”

In all honesty, anything would have been an improvement over the hospital food Shinjiro was used to. But seeing Kotone excited about something had definitely never lost its appeal. “Just… surprise me. You’re good at that.”

Maybe a little too good. She kept showing up with things he hadn’t realized that he still had.

“I’ll get right on that.”

* * *

  
  


Everyone else apparently only started waking up once Shinjiro and Kotone actually had food in front of them. Whether it was due to them sleeping in, or the apparently eternal war over the showers, Shinjiro didn’t know, and had zero interest in asking about it.

It was… different, from how things had been before. Of course it was. Half a year had passed, since then, and odds were none of them had fully adjusted to those changes, yet, when it took so long for most of them to remember why they’d happened in the first place.

But some things were still the same. Aki still looked at him like he couldn’t believe he was actually there, now with more reason than he’d ever had before. Aigis still sat off to the side, not able to eat but too awkward to leave.

Ken still wasn’t meeting Shinjiro’s eye. He hadn’t expected him to.

“You should talk to each other,” Kotone said, quietly, after breakfast was over, and everyone had split up. Honestly, they all probably should have sat around and talked about what they were going to do next, but it wasn’t like any of them had ever claimed to be good at talking to each other. Not about things that were this important, anyway. “It’d be good for both of you.”

The thing was, Kotone was probably the most qualified of all of them to make that statement. That didn’t make it anything that he wanted to hear. “Not sure I see the point to that. Digging up old wounds, and all.” He’d only just remembered all the things that had led to him almost dying, he wasn't eager to go back to it anytime soon.

He didn’t think Kotone would have wanted him to go back to feeling the way he had, either.

“I promise, it won’t be that bad.” She took his hand, gently squeezing it. “He’s- you didn’t see him, after… after everything. But… it’s okay if you aren’t ready. It’s- we’ve got time.”

And there it was. The biggest thing that had changed in the most recent months. It no longer felt like time itself was against them, except maybe in how much of it had been lost. Shinjiro just didn’t have any idea what to do with it.

Or. Not much of an idea. Thinking about it, staying right where he was didn’t seem like a bad idea at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fluff will happen. I promise, it is coming. There's just a bit more that needs to be worked through first.


	14. In Which An Idea Is Had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Look, sometimes, in order to get things back in order, you have to plan a vacation.
> 
> ...At least, that's presumably Kotone's reasoning.

“So… You and Kotone, huh?”

Shinjiro knew that this conversation was coming. He’d known it would happen since the very first moment that the majority of SEES piled onto the roof of Gekkoukan, and had at least suspected that it would be happening long before.

That did not, however, make him any more inclined to have it. “We’re not talking about this.”

“Is there anything you’d rather talk about?” Aki asked. “Things that happened, say… five months ago?”

Shinjiro came to the sudden realization that his own love life was not, in fact, the worst possible topic of conversation he could get roped into, and that this was the actual worst thing. “...Actually, you know what, let’s talk about me and Kotone.”

“You’re not getting away with avoiding this forever, Shinji.”

“I’m not sure I should have to talk about it. It’s all done with, anyway.” He wondered, just for a moment, if everyone else’s Personas were as silent as Castor was being, or if it was just him. He wasn’t sure what it would mean, if it were just him. “It won’t happen again.”

“Because you don’t want it to, or because it literally can’t?” Why did Aki care so much? It all added up to the same thing either way.

And then Shinjiro thought back to the first time he’d seen his brother after he ended up in the special hell that was October through February. The day that Caesar first came into being. “...Both, I think.” He wasn’t sure which of them would be harder to prove.

He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to prove either of them. He wasn’t entirely willing to even try- what if he was wrong? It was a twist of fate that let him survive the first time.

Aki sighed. “...I’m gonna hold you to that.”

He would have thought less of him if he didn’t. And he was never, ever going to say as much out loud. Especially not to his face.

“Just because your hair’s already gray doesn’t mean you can just worry about me all the time,” He stated instead. That seemed like good, practical advice, didn’t it? “Between you and Koto, I’ll never have a moment’s peace again.” He was only half-sure this was an exaggeration. Neither of them were particularly low-stress individuals.

Shinjiro didn’t have to look at Aki to know that, at that moment, he would absolutely not like the look on his face. “I still want to know how that happened.”

“I’m not even sure, really.” It wasn’t that he felt like he was still missing any of those memories- they were some of the things he was most sure about- but looking back on it, it all just seemed really surreal. “She just… showed up one day and never left me alone.” Apparently, that was the only way he’d ever be able to get close to people.

Admittedly, it wasn’t like he’d been doing himself any favors on that front. With how much he pushed people away, it was only the persistent ones who would ever have any chance.

“...I guess that makes sense. You weren’t…” Aki trailed off. Shinjiro wasn’t sure if he was searching for a tactful way of saying it, or if he just didn’t want to say it at all.

“I’m not great with people,” He agreed, carefully glossing over the fact that he hadn’t wanted to be good with people, that no matter how much part of him wanted to be cared about, it had usually been shouted over by the part of him that said he didn’t deserve happiness. The one good thing about losing his memories was that it made that part of him shut up for a while. “But Koto is, and I guess that all works out, somehow.”

He didn’t think he could explain it better if he tried. But he was sure that his brother understood either way. He’d met Kotone, after all, and it wasn’t like she did much to hide the way she was. Even when no one else remembered what she was talking about, she still didn’t do a lot to conceal just how special she was.

Then again. He wasn’t entirely sure it would be even possible to do that.

* * *

  
  


In all honesty, a part of why Shinjiro wasn’t sure how to describe his and Kotone’s relationship to Aki was the fact that he and Kotone had never really had a discussion about it, at least while he was lucid. There might have been something, during the time when he wasn’t fully connected to his body, but if there was he couldn’t remember it.

They probably should have actually talked about it at some point, but that would require knowing how to bring it up, and Shinjiro had enough problems figuring out how to broach topics that were completely safe.

Besides. Kotone tended to be busy with helping everyone else try and adjust- try apparently being the key word here- so they probably didn’t have time for that, anyway.

“I’ve been thinking,” She announced one day. “We… well, we always said that, once the Dark Hour was dealt with, and if the world didn’t end, we’d have a party. But… I guess we all forgot that with everything else.”

Most of them. At this point, they were all aware that she had never forgotten. It was just that she wasn’t bringing that up at the moment.

Actually, Shinjiro didn’t think she’d brought it up since before everyone else had remembered.

“I… guess we did.” Yukari didn’t sound entirely interested. “Doesn’t it… feel like it’s a bit too late for that? The Dark Hour’s been gone since February.”

It had been. And none of them remembered it enough to know it was gone. While Shinjiro couldn’t really say that he missed it, it still felt kind of sad. It had been part of their lives for so long, and then it vanished without a trace, and most of them hardly noticed a thing.

“To celebrate Shinji getting out of the hospital, then.”

“Please don’t drag me into this…” Really, he was fine with just getting a hug and being told everyone had missed him, he didn’t need any major attention.

“...Okay, to celebrate Akihiko-senpai and Mitsuru-senpai graduating.”

“I think what I’m getting from this is that you just really want to have a party.”

“Maybe I do,” She admitted. “But- but it’d be nice, to have everyone together for something happy. It doesn’t really happen enough.”

And Shinjiro couldn’t make any sort of comment, because him not being there had been a big part of the reason for that. And she wasn’t upset with him for it. Hadn’t been even when she was sitting alone, having conversations with someone she couldn’t see. The only reason he could think of for that was that any anger she would have had had been drowned out by… well, everything else.

Of course she wanted to have the group together and happy again.

“That… does sound nice,” Yukari agreed. “I’m not sure how we’d do it, though.”

“We could always return to Yakushima.” Somehow, none of them had noticed Mitsuru arrive. For a moment, Shinjiro wondered how he hadn’t registered the chill she always brought with her, but then, there wasn’t much reason for her to put on a cold front at the moment. Or maybe he was just too used to being cold, even with Kotone’s continual abuse of her powers. “I’d be more than willing to make the necessary arrangements.”

He’d figure it out later. It all depended on whether it got significantly warmer after she left. Not exactly rocket science.

“You would?” Kotone perked up immediately. “That… doesn’t seem like a bit much?”

Okay, if Kotone was hesitant about something, it had to be extravagant to the extreme. This was something that was only supported by how it was Mitsuru making the suggestion. “It’s that big a deal?”

“She has a mansion.” Okay, somehow, that was even more than he’d expected. He wasn’t sure why. It was Mitsuru, this sort of thing shouldn’t have been surprising in the slightest. “You have to see it for yourself- Ken-kun, too. He hasn’t been there yet, either.”

...Well. He supposed there were worse ways to spend spring break.

* * *

  
  


But. That was a thing to worry about in a week or so, since even Mitsuru needed time to arrange a vacation like that. Which was good, since if SEES was apparently going to be pulled along in a beach trip according to Kotone’s whims, they probably needed at least some sort of warning.

“Is that how you normally make plans?” Shinjiro found himself asking.

Kotone sat down next to him, but didn’t try moving any closer. “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s Minato-kun doing it. Sometimes we just get in a fight and never get anywhere. When both of us and Mitsuru-senpai end up agreeing on something, though… It’s going to happen even if we have to break physics to do it.”

Somehow, he didn’t doubt that. As much of an unknown factor as Minato might have been, if he was anything like the other two, there probably wasn’t much that could stand up to the three of them together.

Clearly, even the apocalypse hadn’t been able to manage it.

Still… he sort of wondered how he hadn’t noticed that brand of decision-making before. If that was what everything came down to… then there probably shouldn’t have been such a blank space in his brain where Minato should have been, supposedly-limited interactions or not.

“You know, that almost makes sense,” He commented. “World’s probably afraid to stand up to you.” What with the fire, ice, and assorted other powers. Even without them, that kind of force of personality could be a lot when it came from just one person, let alone three of them. A little confidence could be a very, very dangerous thing.

Confidence like Kotone had, with the power to reshape herself into whoever she saw fit? He wasn’t sure why she even needed the other two.

“I wouldn’t go that far… I don’t- Okay, I know why someone would be scared of me, but…” She shook her head. “Never mind. So. Yakushima. What do you think?”

“Iori’s gonna do something stupid, and maybe drag Aki into it.”

“Well, yes, probably, but who knows? Maybe he’s learned his lesson from last time. He’s been doing a lot of growing up recently.” He’d have to take her word for it. “Here’s what I’m thinking: Beach. Sun. Seeing if Aigis is able to make a first impression that isn’t… kind of creepy.”

That last one sounded like a bit of a long shot. Aigis was… an experience. Shinjiro wasn’t entirely sure how people didn’t catch on to her being a robot on sight. “And if someone notices she’s not human?”

“Then that’ll be the first time she’s talked to someone long enough to get that far. Also, nobody would ever believe them. It should be fine.”

“Okay, but you get to be the one explaining that to Mitsuru.”

“I’m not sure she could blame us for it. This was her idea.” It seemed like there was nothing that could curb her enthusiasm at the moment. If anything, it was just growing more and more contagious.

There really, really were worse places to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is taking the robot right to the beach a bad idea? Maybe.
> 
> Is Kotone going to let that stop her? Of course not.


	15. In Which Shinji Talks to Ken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Proper communication is important. When it comes to the members of SEES, this can be a bit of a problem, as most of them are terrible at it.
> 
> They can still muddle their way through, though. It just takes a lot of effort.

One of the closest things Shinjiro had to a plan, back when his memories just wouldn’t come to mind and all he had to go one were two people who loved him more than he deserved, was a thought that maybe he could go back to school. It had been something that Kotone was more excited about than he was, but then, he’d never been the world’s most excitable person.

As it was, that was still the best plan he had, in the sense that it was the closest thing that he actually had to a plan. Plans had somehow actually been easier to make when he wasn’t aware of how badly he’d fucked his own life up.

He figured that, as far as plans went, it actually wasn’t all that bad of one. Better than the things he’d been coming up with for himself more recently, at least.

The biggest problem was that going back to school would require, among other things, studying. Which… he hadn’t been terrible at it, back in middle school. He got by. But that had been years ago, and now he was on the other side of… well. A lot of things.

Aki had offered to help, but Shinjiro wasn’t sure that’d actually make things better. It was just as likely that one of them would accidentally say something that ruined the fragile peace between them. Shinjiro wasn’t sure he could remember the last time the two of them went this long without really fighting. It was… actually kind of weird.

Still, as tempting as it was to get into a petty argument over the order of operations… That just didn’t seem like it’d be helpful at all. If it still felt too weird not to have something to fight over in a week, well, he was sure one of them would do something to annoy the other eventually.

Arisato and Kotone had also volunteered their help, though, while they were probably better than Aki, he wasn’t sure they’d be much more help, either. If only because he’d heard about Arisato constantly sleeping through classes, and Kotone was effectively a living distraction.

This just left Mitsuru. Who, as it turned out, couldn’t teach.

“Maybe I should just come back to this after our trip…” He sighed. It wasn’t like he had plans to be at the top of the class, or anything. Just making it to graduation would be enough to fulfill his wildest expectations.

“If you keep thinking like that you’ll never have good study habits,” Mitsuru pointed out.

“I don’t need good study habits, I just need to be able to pass.” He’d never exactly had high hopes for his future. But he’d gone to the trouble of getting into high school to begin with. He might as well have actually gone through with the rest of it.

He got the feeling that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. But the times he’d told people what they wanted to hear had never numbered all that high to begin with. He didn’t particularly like lying to them.

“...I suppose that’s your decision.” She didn’t outright say that she disapproved, but she didn’t need to. Shinjiro was well aware. “...Are you sure you wouldn’t want Akihiko’s help? He might be better at explaining things to you.”

“I am absolutely not that desperate.”

* * *

  
  


It was just a few hours later that Shinjiro decided that, between everyone else’s TV habits, and how open and empty the place was in the middle of the night, he absolutely could not stand spending another night huddled on one of the couches. Immediately after coming to this realization, he decided to tackle the first enemy in his way- the stairs.

If Castor were still around, Shinjiro was sure he’d have heard some kind of snide remark. His Persona had never been one for subtle feelings when actual words would suffice, strange as it was to think about. He himself wasn’t a wordy person.

But Castor wasn’t there, or at least he wasn’t saying anything, so he just hauled himself up onto the second floor after about three minutes of psyching himself up to do so.

It probably wasn’t his best idea- it left him exhausted, and he wasn’t looking forward to going back down those stairs later- but dealing with doing it again was a problem for Future Shinji.

“Hey, you made it!” Aki’s words were entirely genuine, but if Shinjiro were feeling mean-spirited, he would probably have been able to find something about them worth starting a fight over. He still didn’t want to start a fight with him, though. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I live up here now.” If he never had to take the stairs again, then he wouldn't have to worry about falling. Simple as that.

“...You know, you’re going to have to go downstairs if you want food.”

“We have vending machines.” Admittedly, he wouldn’t want to eat from them if there were any better options available, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and all.

Aki cast a skeptical glance at the nearest vending machine, which contained mostly rice balls and soda. “...You want someone to bring you something later?”

Honestly, that did sound a lot better. “I mean, if they want to…” If someone decided to take food all the way upstairs to him, he wasn’t exactly going to say no. Waste of perfectly good food, otherwise.

Still, Shinjiro was aware that, even if he’d explicitly said not to bring him anything, either Aki or Kotone would still be at his door to make sure he didn’t starve. At this point, he wouldn’t have been overly surprised if it turned out the two of them had made a schedule for spending time with him and making sure he was alright. That was bound to get annoying eventually.

For now, though… he could just be content with the reminder that they cared.

* * *

  
  


In the end, though, it wasn’t Aki or Kotone who brought him his dinner.

Shinjiro had been collapsed on his bed, wondering how long it would take to clear away all the dust from his room- and also sort out the stuff that had gotten mixed up when everyone else went through it while he was unconscious- when there was a rapid knock on his door. No announcing voice, but there was a faint scratching sound that rather heavily implied the presence of Koromaru.

“Doors unlocked,” He called, because he simply hadn’t had the energy to care about keeping everyone who wasn’t him out.

The door opened, first a small crack, and then a lot faster as Koromaru pushed his way through it. “K-Koromaru!” Amada Ken stood in the door, holding a tray with a plate of food on it.

“...Hey, Koro-chan.” Even if he’d been a lot worse off than he actually was, Shinjiro wasn’t sure he’d ever have managed to stop himself from petting the dog. “Kid. Surprised to see you up here.”

“Kotone-san said I could bring this to you, if I wanted.” Ken was careful in picking his way across the room, despite the near-complete lack of obstacles. Shinjiro had never actually gotten around to unpacking. He hadn’t thought he’d ever need to.

Depending on what happened to the dorm, he might have been right about that, but it was for a reason more depressing than even he’d realized.

“Well, put it on the side of the desk, then.” That seemed like a perfectly reasonable place. At the very least, it was well within his reach, and that was probably the important thing.

For a moment, all was silent as the kid did as he was told. Then there was a pause- either the longest or the shortest one ever, depending on who was asked about it- in which Shinjiro and Ken just looked at each other, both of them clearly unsure of what to say.

It was Ken who found words first. “Shinjiro-san, I-” He stopped himself, just for a moment, his hands clenching tightly into fists, and then he continued. “It’s just- I want to say- I’m sorry.”

The fact that Shinjiro couldn’t remember those two words ever passing between the two of them before was probably something that should have worried him. “Nothing to be sorry about.” The kid hadn’t done anything wrong, really. At least, nothing worse than he had.

Ken didn’t seem to agree. “B-but I- That night, I was… I was out of line.” And the words sounded practiced, rehearsed, as if he’d gone over them a million times in the privacy of his own room, but was losing his grasp on them now that he finally got to try and speak them. “And- and you got hurt because of it. It’s- you almost…” There were tears starting to well up now, and Shinjiro was even less equipped to deal with them than he was to handle Kotone’s.

“I mean, I’m fine now, aren’t I?” Down a Persona, at least for the time being, up a couple scars, an imperfect memory… but there he was.

Ken flinched away. Maybe those hadn’t been the right words to use. “I- You wouldn’t wake up,” He said in a small voice, as though Shinjiro wasn’t fully aware of how long he’d gone without being truly connected to his body. But then, unless Aki or Kotone had told someone, they were probably the only ones who’d known just how disconnected he’d been besides Shinjiro himself. And he wasn’t even sure they’d talked about him to each other. Communication wasn’t exactly their thing. “N-No matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t…”

Ken, Shinjiro dimly remembered, was a healer. He hadn’t made much use of those powers when he’d been around, but there’d been a certain look of pure delight on his face the first time he patched up some of the party’s injuries that had been impossible to miss.

“You tried to…?” When he thought about it, he realized it was actually less surprising than he’d originally thought. “Why?”

“Because I wanted you to wake up.” The kid still sounded as if he was on the verge of tears. “It- you shouldn’t have been hurt like that to begin with.”

Of course not. By all logic, he should have been dead. But something told him that this really wasn’t the time to mention that.

“Well. I’m here, you’re here, Takaya’s- whatever happened to Takaya?”

“Minato-san.”

Well. Shinjiro decided that he wasn’t going to think too deeply about that answer. “Well, he’s gone, so I guess that means we win.”

Ken didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he took Koromaru and left Shinjiro to eat, so he supposed he must have done well enough.

Really, it was a lot more than he’d ever thought he’d manage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not shown: Ken asking Kotone for literally any excuse to talk to Shinji, and her handing him a tray covered in food without a second thought.


	16. In Which Vacation is Prepped For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sort of. It doesn't actually take that much effort.
> 
> The things that actually do need effort are also being prepped for, but much more slowly.

Despite Ken being the one to deliver the tray, it was Kotone who eventually came to collect it. “How was it?” She asked, her face unreadable.

“It was… all right.” He couldn’t really say much more. It’d be a while before he was fully used to eating anything other than hospital food. Or. He couldn’t say much about the food, at least. “Is… there a reason you sent the kid up here, or…?”

“He wanted to help.” Things always sounded so simple, when she put it like that. “And while Fuuka-chan’s able to make edible food now, I still feel more comfortable if she’s where I can see her.”

“She can’t be that bad.” She’d already been well on her way to making proper meals back in September, the only reason Kotone could possibly be actually worried about it would be if she backslid. A lot. And that just didn’t seem very likely.

“She isn’t, really, except that me leaving her alone will make Minato-kun paranoid about it, and there’s really only so many of his dramatics I can take.” From what Shinjiro had observed, Kotone seemed to have very little patience for Arisato in general.

“...You really don’t like that guy, do you?”

She shook her head. “We had a… disagreement, back in autumn, and it just didn’t get any better from there. I mean, I don’t think anyone’s all that happy with him, these days, but I was disillusioned a lot sooner than everyone else was.”

Given all the complaints that she’d had about him, he was sort of surprised that them having a major disagreement had taken that long. “Guess it had to be bad. You wouldn’t even stop hanging around me when I told you to.” And he’d tried, for a while, because he knew that, if they got any closer to each other, sooner or later she was going to get hurt. And then it became clear that the point of no return had been a lot sooner than he’d anticipated, and that by the time he’d even thought about pushing her away, it had already been too late. Because once Kotone decided that she wanted to be friends with a person, that person was never getting away.

Most people wouldn’t realize this. Most people wouldn’t even think to question the fact that there was now someone who would stand up for them against just about anything. But Shinjiro hadn’t been in a state to stand up for himself, let alone ask anyone else to do so. Sometimes, her insistence on doing so was annoying, and other times it was a relief.

Mostly, it was both. Which he was sure would confuse anyone he actually told about it, but it wasn’t like he had plans to tell anyone about it. Not even her.

“That’s different,” She pouted. Actually pouted. “You’re actually likable.”

“...Can I ask someone else for a less biased opinion?”

“...I don’t think you’re going to find that in this dorm.”

* * *

  
  


At least packing for vacation was simple enough. A change of clothes, some swimwear, and that was about it. Everything fit into a single bag, and Shinjiro was pretty sure he’d be able to carry it without having to ask someone for help.

He’d managed to get all of that out of the way in the space of a single hour, and most of that time was spent trying to remember which boxes all of his things were in.

...Once he figured out where he’d be living next, the first thing he’d do would be to actually unpack things. That seemed like a good general strategy.

Still, everything being packed already meant two more days of not really doing much, unless he wanted to try and convince Aki to try and wear something a bit less revealing to the beach, and he was pretty sure that wasn’t a fight he’d win. It would be easier to just pretend not to know him while they were there. He’d done it before.

Still, so long as he ignored that one mortifying little tidbit, at least he had a decent topic of conversation. “You guys all went up there last summer, didn’t you?” He’d only heard about it after the fact, and never gotten all that much detail, but it wasn’t really a secret.

Mostly because, eventually, they’d had to tell him where Aigis came from, but that wasn’t the point.

Aki nodded along. “Just a few days after exams, but it was… mostly pretty nice. And the stuff that wasn’t was Junpei’s fault, so…”

“Why, what’d Iori do?” Not that Shinjiro was surprised that he would have done something, but this was definitely a thing he hadn’t heard about.

“I-I don’t want to talk about it.” He glanced to the side. “And- and it wasn’t that interesting, anyway.” The more his brother tried to deflect his attention, the more interested he got.

“...So, you wouldn’t mind if I asked Iori about it?” He probably wouldn’t. Probably. It could have been interesting. He’d have to think about it.

“H-He wouldn’t want to tell you either!” And really, that probably told him everything that he needed to know. Whatever it was, even Iori hadn’t had any fun with it.

“And I guess it’s never going to happen again?” He didn’t even have to wait for an answer. “Damn, I missed all the good stuff.”

“That’s what happens when you’re never around. We go off and do things without you. It’s- I’m not eight years old anymore.” Of course not. When they were eight, they were actually capable of holding a conversation without inadvertently pressing someone’s buttons every time they switched topics. That had only started happening once they got older, and had a lot more buttons to press.

“Well, yeah. You can almost take care of yourself now.”

“What do you mean almost!?” The air prickled with the slightest traces of static electricity. Shinjiro didn’t pay it any mind. One didn’t spend large amounts of time around Aki without building up a certain tolerance for static. “I manage just fine!”

“...When was the last time you had a normal conversation with someone outside this building?”

“...Shut up.”

* * *

  
  


In all honesty, Shinjiro should have expected Mitsuru to want to talk with him before now. Even if they’d never been the closest of friends, he was still one of the first people she’d ever actually managed to befriend. That her absence hadn’t felt a bit strange he was willing to attribute to residual gaps in his memory and the fact that, until very recently, he’d been living exclusively on the first floor, and even now barely left his room.

But, eventually, she appeared. “I- there’s a few things that… I need to discuss with you.”

“Go ahead.” He had a few ideas of what it could be already. There were a lot of things that needed to be sorted out, and he was at the center of about half of them.

“I am willing to admit that I… didn’t actually make any plans for the Dark Hour no longer occurring. Partly because I didn’t entirely believe it could actually happen, and once it did happen, I could no longer remember enough to plan for it.” That sounded about right. Mitsuru’s plans were normally just fine, but when she overlooked something, it tended to come back to haunt her a few months later.

And, of course, there was the fact that SEES had been a complete mess at the best of times. Little things like planning for a future that might never happen sort of flew out the window, in the face of that sort of complete lack of coordination.

“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking with me about it for. Not sure I can help you, by all means I was expecting to be dead by now.”

The air chilled, just a little bit. “On second thought, maybe that’s what we need to have a talk about.” Shinjiro wondered how he hadn’t seen that coming.

“You really think so? I’m pretty sure I already know that I messed up.” He couldn’t exactly spend four months wandering between dreams, reality, and memories without figuring that out, even if he hadn’t really been in a position to do anything about it. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

“...I suppose not.” He sort of wondered what she was thinking about, in that moment. “But it is important that we all discuss the future at some point, as there are certain things that… we probably should have considered sooner.”

And he supposed that he was part of that. He hadn’t really been doing a lot to make himself a clear path from here. Even the ideas that he did have were vague enough that a lot of things still needed to be properly filled in.

“...Shouldn’t there be a few more people here, then?”

“I thought it was best to give you a warning ahead of time. If only so you have no excuse for trying to miss it.” Maybe they’d known each other a bit too long. “I feel like you’d want to have some input on this.”

Honestly, that was probably a good idea, even if he was fine with just about anything the others were likely to come up with. “...I’ll think about it.” It probably wouldn’t end up happening at least until they left for vacation, so that was at least a day to either talk himself into or out of it. He wasn’t sure which yet.

Maybe once the whole thing was over with, he could try and remember what a normal life had been like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SEES is probably never going to have the same definition of normal as most people, but they can try. Sort of. It's never going to get all that far, because they- and by they I mostly mean Kotone- are never going to stop using magic as part of their daily lives, but they're still trying.


End file.
